Firefighters have managed to control a forest fire in Paüls, in Baix Ebre, where they continue to work with a dozen crews to extinguish it. The alert was received a few minutes before eleven this Thursday morning. Among the activated crews are members of the Forest Action Group (GRAF) and the Forest Active Prevention Team (EPAF), as well as a water-dropping helicopter.

The Mossos d'Esquadra pointed out that The death of five young people in a storage area of ​​a building in Manlleu (Osona) The fire on February 16th was accidental: the cause appears to have been a fire in a mattress, likely started by a cigarette butt. Initial investigations by the Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police) indicate that the young people did not die from burns, and that the burning mattress was in a different storage room from the one where the young people were found. The police have now concluded their initial investigation and have sent their findings to the court handling the case. Instead of fire, they concluded, they found no accelerant or explosion. The young people were fully clothed and showed no signs of foul play or burns, as confirmed by the autopsies. Emergency services also found no locked doors to gain access to the fire and did not have to force entry. The investigation also confirms that the fire did not cause structural damage to the building. To gather all the necessary information, the Mossos took seven statements, allowing them to study and analyze what happened during the afternoon and up until shortly before the fire. Although these initial steps have been completed, more work remains to be done, and further checks by the investigation unit are also needed.

A group of girls gather near number 66A on Montseny Street in Manlleu because they are confused. They knew some of the five minors—one 14-year-old, three 16-year-olds, and one 17-year-old—who died on Monday night in a fire in the blog's atticThey went together to the Antoni Pous i Argila Institute in the Osona municipality, and while hugging her friends, one of the girls says they came to "try to process what happened." While the Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police) investigate the events—officers coming and going—another group of teenagers gathers, looking at the images circulating of the burned-out storage room. They also shared a classroom at the institute with the victims, and they too are baffled as to how an afternoon of leisure ended so tragically. "The storage room was a place to hang out, like all young people do," says one of them, the tallest, while his classmates' eyes fill with tears. Throughout Tuesday morning, the area outside the building where this tragic event took place has become a place of pilgrimage for friends and acquaintances of the victims. Residents of the Erm neighborhood in Manlleu also came, many to offer their condolences to the young people and their families. Whether due to the low temperatures, typical of a February morning, or the curious onlookers who had gathered, the atmosphere was cold. This was an expression, in fact, used by the municipal architect, Enric Gil, after inspecting the building to rule out any structural damage. "It's cold in the building today, and it's cold in Manlleu," he said, underscoring the tragedy.

Five minors died Monday night and five other people suffered minor injuries in a fire in a building on Montseny Street in Manlleu (Osona). The fire started in a storage room on the roof of building 66A, a five-story building with about 40 apartments. All indications are that the young people used the building as a meeting place and, for reasons unknown, were unable to survive. The Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police) are investigating the cause of the fire.

Three fires have affected three different homes and left two dead tonight in Catalonia, within a few hours of each other. In Hospitalet de Llobregat, a 77-year-old man died in a fire that broke out last night in his home. Firefighters received the call at 9:55 p.m. The flames completely gutted a room on one of the apartments on the fifth floor of the building, located on Uva Street. It is a six-story building with a ground floor and four apartments per floor. As a result of the fire, eight other people required medical attention from the Emergency Medical System (SEM), and one of them was taken to Bellvitge Hospital in stable condition. Firefighters deployed eight crews—two light coordination and command vehicles, a ladder truck, and three water tankers—to the scene to extinguish the blaze. For its part, the SEM (Emergency Medical Service) activated seven units and a team of psychologists, and the Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan Police) also deployed eight patrols. The municipal architect has carried out a structural assessment of the building, and the City Council's social services have taken charge of the care and relocation of those who have been unable to return to their homes. Shortly after 1:00 a.m., another fire gutted a fourth-floor apartment in a building in Constantí, Tarragona. When firefighters arrived, they found flames "fully engulfed" and "several residents trapped in windows and on the roof." The fire had already burned the entire fourth-floor apartment and had spread up the facade to the roof. During the firefighting efforts, firefighters found a 54-year-old man dead inside the damaged building. Firefighters also evacuated two people from the fifth floor and rescued two other residents from the penthouse terrace using a ladder truck. The rest had remained inside their homes. However, the building has not suffered any structural damage. A third fire affected another apartment, this time in Castelldefels. The fire, which started shortly after 3:00 a.m., engulfed the kitchen of a first-floor apartment, while the rest of the apartment was affected by the heat and smoke, which spread through the stairwell and eventually affected a second-floor apartment. The residents of the ground floor and the people on the second floor have been able to return home, while the Local Police and City Council Social Services have arranged for the temporary accommodation of the family from the damaged apartment, who will not be able to return until the cleanup is completed.

The New Year's Eve tragedy in Switzerland following the fire in a bar in the town of Crans-MontanaThe tragedy has so far claimed 40 lives. However, this toll is still provisional, as 119 more people were injured, most of them critically. On Sunday, Swiss forensic services identified all the bodies: among the deceased were 22 Swiss nationals, while the second most affected national group was French, with seven victims. Six of the deceased were Italian, two Romanian, one Portuguese, one Belgian, and one Turkish. One of the most harrowing facts is that half of the dead (who ranged in age from 14 to 39) were minors. Among the victims was 18-year-old Joaquim Van Thuyne Daniel, the son of a Catalan mother. Although he was born in Switzerland in 2007 and his family lived there, the young man had Catalan roots. He played football and was at the bar with other team members who also lost their lives. His grandfather, Josep Daniel, is well-known in Sant Cugat del Vallès, where he is a co-founder of the University Extension Program for Seniors. In fact, a funeral mass is expected to be held at the Sant Cugat monastery to remember the victim. At the moment, no date has been set. The young man's burial will take place in Lausanne, Switzerland.

All the victims of the fire at a bar in the Swiss town of Crans-Montana have now been identified. Forensic teams completed the identification of the 40 fatalities on Sunday, and on Monday, the 119 injured in the tragedy, most of them in critical condition, were also identified. The deceased included people of various nationalities, including Swiss, Italian, and French. The vast majority were young people, many of them teenagers, who were attending a New Year's Eve party. A total of 32 bodies were identified on Sunday. Eight had already been identified on Saturday, and police identified another 16 on Sunday morning. Authorities reported the final 16 identifications on Sunday evening. Specifically, of the 40 fatalities, 22 were Swiss, while the second most affected nationality was French, with seven victims. Six of the deceased were Italian, two Romanian, one Portuguese, one Belgian, and one Turkish. Their ages ranged from 14 to 39 years old.

The number of deaths in the fire that occurred this Wednesday in the Wang Fuk Court residential complex The death toll in Hong Kong has risen to 151, while approximately 40 people remain missing, according to official sources on Friday. The Secretary of State for Security of the semi-autonomous region, Chris Tang Ping-keung, told the media that 80 bodies have yet to be identified and did not rule out the possibility of finding more. Authorities have declared the rescue operations concluded.

Three people were seriously injured in a fire at a recycling plant in the La Borda industrial park in Caldes de Montbui. The incident occurred around 7:00 a.m. this Friday at the warehouse of Tratamiento de Subproductos Industriales, a company dedicated to industrial recycling. All three are employees of the plant. A series of explosions, heard from the town, caused a fire that spread rapidly throughout the factory and was brought under control two hours later. The injured, as confirmed to Catalunya Ràdio by the mayor of Caldes de Montbui, Isidre Pineda, are three workers who were inside the factory at the time of the accident. All three were transported by the Medical Emergency Service (SEM) to Vall d'Hebron Hospital. One of the injured suffered burns to 20% of his body, and the other two suffered burns to 9% of their body, but in critical areas. The Catalan Fire Service (Bombers de la Generalitat) brought the flames under control around 9:00 AM, but were still working mid-morning, pouring water on the fire. They also had to remove pallets and other materials because the fire threatened to spread to adjacent warehouses. The emergency services plan to maintain a presence until nightfall to fully extinguish the blaze.

Firefighters from the Generalitat (Catalan government) are working on a fire that is now under control in an area near the train tracks between Sant Vicenç de Calders and Torredembarra. The fire temporarily halted service on lines R14, R15, R16, and R17, but service was restored after a few hours. Civil Protection activated the pre-alert phase of the Ferrocat plan, and firefighters are working on the perimeter of the fire, which they were able to bring under control before 9:00 PM. The fire burned an area of vegetation, and the fire department is working with six crews. The emergency call to 112 was received at 7:26 PM. The fire broke out in the Muntanyans area. We are working to expand this information.

He Normal restaurantA restaurant in Girona's Plaça del Aceite, owned by the Roca brothers, burned down last night. The fire reportedly started at 12:16 a.m., according to the Catalan Fire Service, affecting the extractor hood, chimney, and nearby materials. Beyond the kitchen, no injuries were reported. Sommelier Josep Roca stated on social media that "no one was hurt" and the damage caused by the fire was "nothing serious that can't be fixed." He did, however, apologize for the inconvenience caused to neighbors who had to leave their homes, but were able to return once the fire was extinguished.

Several explosions and a large column of fire and smoke woke residents of Barcelona's Sant Martí district this morning. A fire in a shantytown at the intersection of Huelva and Bac de Roda streets—next to the La Sagrera construction site—injured two people and burned six of these structures. Firefighters, who received the call at 7:00 a.m., worked to extinguish the blaze with ten crews around 9:00 a.m. They continued to soak the burned area until mid-morning. One of the victims suffered burns, and another a cut finger. According to municipal sources, at least one of the two was taken to Vall d'Hebron Hospital, while the other was treated and released at the scene.

Ten fire crews are working to extinguish a fire, now under control, at Mas Marroch, the Roca brothers' event restaurant in Vilablareix (Girona). The fire is burning in the establishment's wooden dome, and there are no injuries, the fire department reported via social media.

A tourist bus caught fire this Friday afternoon at around 4:30 p.m. on Barcelona's Avinguda Diagonal, at the intersection with Carrer Rosselló. The fire has been extinguished, the passengers were evacuated, and no injuries were reported. However, traffic was blocked in the area and five Barcelona Fire Brigade units were activated, according to municipal sources.

Soccer player Vinícius Junior's home in Madrid caught fire Thursday morning, according to several local and national media outlets. The Real Madrid player's residence is located in the La Moraleja neighborhood of Alcobendas, just over 20 kilometers from Madrid. The fire reportedly started in the basement, where the gym and sauna are located, which caught fire for reasons still unknown. No one was home at the time, and emergency services did not have to treat any injuries. In fact, the player is currently training with the Brazilian national team.

Forests occupy more than 41% of Catalonia's territory, and in the last thirty years they have gained ground, specifically 122,000 hectares. This might seem like good news, but it doesn't have to be. The case of Montseny is a good example: it now has more trees than a century ago, as explained by the director of conservation of the Natural Park, Daniel Guinart, but the drop in rainfall, the increase in heat, and uncontrolled forest cover are smothering the trees, and the dead vegetation becomes fuel for potential forest fires.

When fire shows its destructive power near a house or crops that are the result of the efforts of many generations rooted in that land, it is impossible not to be moved. It would be utterly insensitive to tell them that it is only a spark of what is happening on the planet.

Suddenly, the phone emits a shrill sound, to which we were previously unfamiliar, and a text from the Generalitat Civil Protection appears, often accompanied by a danger signal with an exclamation point. The content of the message varies depending on the emergency: there is a fire nearby and you must stay indoors; downpours are forecast and it is recommended to avoid outdoor activities; there has been an accident that could cause a chemical cloud… This is the ES-Alert alert, which sends pop-up messages to all mobile phones within an area. It was recently sent to the vast majority of the Catalan population (37 of the 43 regions) due to the torrential rains in mid-July.