New fire in Aiguamúrcia: the Rural Agents do not rule out any hypothesis about the origin

BarcelonaA new fire declared this Sunday afternoon in Aiguamúrcia has already affected almost 114.8 hectares of the Vall de l'Infern, it remains active and has the potential to burn a thousand hectares. The fire has forced about 2,500 people from the towns of Aiguamúrcia, la Llacuna, Pontons, Querol, and Torrelles de Foix to be confined, and the Generalitat Firefighters are working to prevent the flames from reaching the Bonany area. This week, marked by a heatwave that has favored the spread of fires across the country, two other fires had already been declared in this area. The Rural Agents and the Mossos d'Esquadra are investigating the origin of the fire and for now have all hypotheses open to clarify how it started to burn.

One of the keys to this fire is that, if it breaks through the right flank in the direction of Mas Vermell or Pontons, its potential would be a thousand hectares because there is "a lot of forest mass", according to the head of the Tarragona emergency region, Albert Castellet. Almost 300 firefighters will work tonight to try to stabilize the fire, with the priority objective of it not reaching scattered urbanizations and putting residents at risk. They expect the meteorological conditions of the night, more favorable than those of this afternoon, to help them, as the relative humidity will increase and the sea breeze will slow it down. Specifically, they will work to close about 200 meters remaining on each flank and about 800 meters of the fire's tail.

Driven by the wind

The fire made its way, pushed by the sea breeze that was blowing in the afternoon. In fact, in the first moments, the fire burned intensely and advanced at two kilometers per hour. Furthermore, the location where it broke out is terrain that does not facilitate the firefighters' work. "Of the three fires we've had here, this is perhaps the one that was located in the worst place, with a lot of forest mass and slow to work with," stated Castellet. The mayor of Aiguamúrcia, Òscar Sendra, explained that the residents are "bewildered" after the municipality has suffered three fires in one week. Last Wednesday, 87 hectares already burned in the Pla de Manlleu area, and on Saturday another fire, smaller, affected about 1,500 square meters also in the Vall de l'Infern.