Good forecasts after a new hard day of fires in the country

BarcelonaThe day has been long and complicated, with hundreds of Generalitat firefighters spread throughout the country, with new fires that have further complicated the extinction of the old ones and with accumulated fatigue, but the day has ended with good forecasts. After a new day of simultaneous fires, the Firefighters have managed to bring the first major fire of the year under control, the one in Les Gavarres, which began to burn last Friday and has affected more than 2,000 hectares and about twenty houses. The fire in Anoia, which forced 30,000 people into lockdown on Monday – one urbanization remains under lockdown – and has affected 500 hectares, is also stabilized, as is a fire that broke out this Tuesday at midday in Segarra, which had great potential, could have been very worrying, but which has been contained within 100 hectares. The forecast is to be able to control the fires this Wednesday morning.

When a fire is controlled, it means that the fire is no longer spreading. That is, only areas that the fire has already passed through can burn or re-burn. This means that the Firefighters have it completely cordoned off. Before that, there is the stabilization phase, which indicates that the Firefighters are already in a position to control the fire. For now, this Tuesday, the extinction corps has not yet been able to declare the Sentmenat fire stabilized, the most complicated front that the Firefighters currently have.

At night, however, the situation is not entirely bad: the head of the Firefighters, David Borrell, explained that they have managed to get the points that worried them most, because they could affect more surface area, to be stable now after an afternoon with a lot of heat and wind that was reviving the fire and launching secondary focuses. In the evening, the lockdowns for most of the urbanizations were also lifted. The measure was maintained in Sant Sebastià de Montmajor and El Farell, where residents had to leave their homes in the afternoon and gather together in a single point controlled by the Firefighters – a measure called horizontal evacuation–. In the evening they were able to return to their homes. There has also been some affected building that still needs to be assessed. "We cannot say it is stabilized, but the first third of the right flank, the left head and the secondary focuses at the head of the right flank are much more stable," stated Borrell.

Critical hours

The fire does not worry the Firefighters until this Wednesday at noon, when the heat and the sea breeze return. In fact, the day will be especially warm, probably warmer than this Tuesday. Borrell admits that this scenario does make them "suffer a lot", especially coming from hours of high tension and with many fires controlled but that need to be kept wet to prevent flare-ups.

The simultaneity that the emergency services face day after day puts them in a complex situation. Operatives are battling fires in Les Gavarres, Sentmenat, and Anoia, one declared in Conca de Barberà (already controlled and caused by a harvester), another in Martorell (also controlled) which forced the closure of train tracks, and yet another in Segarra, which is being investigated to determine if it was caused by work being carried out by operators on a telephone line. In this fire, approximately 800 pigs from a farm also died. All this without taking into account the small fires scattered throughout the country, with dry vegetation and extreme heat, which have once again left practically fifty simultaneous fires spread across the territory.

Therefore, facing another day on the edge, the Rural Agents have extended level 4 of extreme forest fire danger to 214 municipalities in 24 counties. Seven natural spaces are already closed due to fire risk: Les Gavarres, La Ribera Salada, La Baronia de Rialb, Montserrat, El Montsec d'Ares, El Montsec de Rúbies, and Sant Llorenç del Munt i l'Obac.