Two dead in fires burning 5,000 hectares in Ponent
Firefighters have stabilized the first major fire of the summer, which has forced 20,000 residents into confinement, well into the night.
BarcelonaTwo simultaneous fires have been raging in the regions of Segarra, Noguera, and Urgell since Tuesday afternoon. According to firefighters, the blazes have killed two people. They have also forced residents of nine municipalities with a total of more than 20,000 inhabitants to remain under lockdown. The Generalitat (Catalan Government) firefighters managed to stabilize the fires well into the night, allowing the nine towns to be released from lockdown.
The fatalities were two men whom firefighters found in Coscó, in Noguera. The victims were in a car on a road and got out of the vehicle. Their bodies were found a few meters from the car by firefighters while they were extinguishing the fire, and the Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan Mossos d'Esquadra) have opened an investigation into the circumstances of the incident.
The Minister of the Interior, Núria Parlon, confirmed the "saddest and most tragic news" from the command station in Guissona in her appearance announcing the stabilization of the fire. A "very complicated, very difficult" and "unprecedented" fire that, according to the Minister, at times "exceeded the extinguishing capacity" of the Fire Department. The President of the Government, Salvador Illa, offered his condolences to the families of the victims in a message on social media, where he asked the public to exercise extreme caution.
The most developed fire, originating in Torrefeta and Florejacs, has affected 5,000 hectares. In fact, the area affected by this fire has tripled in an hour and a half, to the point that the fire was beyond the extinguishing capacity of the Fire Department for several hours. As for the second fire, which started at midday in Sanaüja, it affected approximately 40 hectares.
At 10:37 p.m., five hours after it started, firefighters managed to stabilize the Torrefeta fire. In their latest communication on Tuesday, the fire department explains that they will continue working "intensively" throughout the night on the two fires still burning in Ponent. The goal is to ensure that this Wednesday, when high temperatures are also expected, the ground is as cool as possible.
Thanks to the favorable progress of the firefighting efforts, at 11:11 p.m. the confinement that had been ordered mid-afternoon in the municipalities of Vilanova de la Aguda, Artesa de Segre, Puentes, Agramunt, Guissona, Cabanabona, Oliola, and Sanaü was lifted.
At around 9:00 p.m., firefighters confirmed that they had regained the capacity to extinguish the fires and that 127 firefighters continue to work on the extinguishing efforts. As for the aerial resources, they were withdrawn once nightfall. There are also farms affected by the fire in Guardiola and Renant, in La Noguera.
At 9:30 p.m., the head of the Fire Department, David Borrell, explained in an initial appearance that they are most concerned about the Torrefeta fire due to its "extremely violent behavior, with a cloud of ash and smoke reaching 19 km in height." However, the Fire Department was already optimistic about the progress of the blaze: "We believe that by tonight we will be able to stabilize and surround it to ensure that there are no flare-ups tomorrow, on a day when high temperatures are also expected," Borrell said. However, he also acknowledged that the situation meant that at times "the safety of the firefighting team was put at risk."
The Minister of the Interior also detailed that "high temperatures and wind" have complicated extinguishing the fire. "However, very important work has been done by the firefighters, but also by farmers who have been mobilized with tractors," the Minister emphasized. Parlon explained that the residents were ordered to stay indoors as a precaution by text message and through the ES-Alert system, due to the rising smoke cloud caused by the fire, which could be harmful to health.
The fire has forced the suspension of vehicle traffic on two roads, the L-313 and the C-14, and the deputy director of Civil Protection, Imma Solé, asked the public in an interview with 324 that they avoid travel to the area as much as possible. Meanwhile, the Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police) have reported that they have helped evacuate a person with reduced mobility in Vilalta due to the Torrefeta fire.
Regarding the lockdown, the mayor of Guissona, Jaume Ars, explained that "as a precaution, it is expected to last at least until 1:00 a.m.," at which time a new coordination meeting will also be held between mayors, firefighters, and rural police officers to assess the progress of the fires.
The first of the fires started around 2:00 p.m. in Sanaüja, in the Segarra region. Within a few hours, firefighters had managed to stabilize the area, but the wind in the area pushed the flames forward, causing the fire to reignite and become active again. The second fire ignited mid-afternoon in Torrefeta and Florejacs, 20 kilometers from where the first fire had started. Between 7:00 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. alone, this second fire grew from 80 hectares to 500 hectares, all of which was agricultural land. In the latest update from the Fire Department, the municipalities with burned areas were Torrefeta and Florejacs (Segarra), Vilanova de l'Aguda (Noguera), Cabanabona (Noguera), Oliola (Noguera), and Agramunt (Urgell).
This afternoon's wind and storms in the area exacerbated the two fires. Despite rain in several affected areas, wind speeds exceeded 125 kilometers per hour and caused "erratic behavior in the fires," forcing firefighters to "continually redesign the extinguishing strategy" to protect their personnel.
The largest pyrocumulus on record
This afternoon's weather conditions in Ponent and the violence of both fires have generated a large column of smoke that has been visible across the Lleida plain. The fire has created a pyrocumulus cloud—a cloud generated by the combination of fire and humidity—at an altitude of 19,000 meters, a phenomenon of magnitude never before seen in Catalonia. Pyrocumulus clouds are created by the extreme temperatures resulting from fires, which quickly evaporate all the water accumulated in vegetation. This causes water vapor to rise rapidly, colliding with cooler air at high altitudes and condensing to form pyrocumulus clouds.
The Torrefeta fire occurred in the midst of a heat wave and another scorching day in which temperatures exceeded 37°C in this town. The showers and thunderstorms that began in the early afternoon in the north of the country also reached the Segarra region. The rain caused the temperature to suddenly drop below 25°C at night, helping firefighters regain control of the two fires still burning in Ponent.
