Pre-emptive avalanche rescue?

Never heard of this before. Patrollers were so certain that there WOULD be an avalanche that they alerted rescue services before they even saw it.

(from Pistehors.com) At around 15h00 a 21 year old French man took the closed Combe du Thuit run in les Deux Alpes. The piste patrol saw the man cross over barriers and warning signs and fearing for his safety alerted the rescue services. They had to wait 45 minutes for a clearing in the weather before flying over the sector where they spotted fresh tracks entering a large avalanche at 1600 meters altitude. The man was discovered under a meter of snow by an avalanche dog and after a long resuscitation was flown to hospital in Grenoble in a critical condition.

Interesting.

Easy to armchair here, but you'd think that if avalanche danger was certain within a controlled area (even if closed) they'd release it beforehand anyway.

Do they do avalanche control in Europe except for road and village protection??

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Originally Posted by BSS

Interesting.

Easy to armchair here, but you'd think that if avalanche danger was certain within a controlled area (even if closed) they'd release it beforehand anyway.

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It's Europe, there is no controlled area (generally). In ski areas mostly only potential avalanche slopes with runouts leading to pistes are controlled. I don't know Les Deux Alpes but I'm guessing Come du Thuit is just a name for an offpiste run (possibly skiroute) and 'closed' means there were avalanche warning signs visible when entering the area.. which translates to 'enter at own risk'