Three new fires push Catalonia to the limit: "We are in extremely complicated moments"

BarcelonaIt was expected to be a complicated week and the fire has not given respite since the first day. When the Generalitat Firefighters have not yet been able to declare the serious fire affecting La Bisbal d'Empordà since Friday under control, there are already three new fires burning simultaneously in the midst of a heatwave. The new fires broke out this afternoon in Sentmenat, in Vallès Occidental; in Artesa de Segre, in La Noguera; and in the region of Anoia, between the towns of Carme and La Pobla de Claramunt. The authorities have confined about 33,000 people from the south of Igualada and various towns in the Anoia region, as well as some urbanizations and scattered settlements between Sentmenat and Castellar del Vallès.

"We are in extremely complicated moments," warned this Monday afternoon the Minister of the Interior, Núria Parlon, from the unified command center that the Firefighters have opened in Bellaterra in view of the simultaneity of the fires. The minister – who has once again requested the help of the Military Emergencies Unit (UME) to confront the fires – specified that the fire that most concerns is the one in Sentmenat, where 200 firefighters are working and which has the potential to burn up to 2,000 hectares. For the moment, this fire has affected 60 hectares, according to data from the Rural Agents.

The main cause for concern in the Sentmenat fire case is the proximity of the flames to the El Farrell urbanization. In a statement to the media, the chief inspector of the Firefighters, David Borrell, acknowledged that if the fire reaches the urbanization, it will be "impossible" to protect the houses – some made of wood – as they are widely scattered and are "literally inside the forest". Faced with this scenario, the teams' decision has been to prioritize the protection of people. For this reason, the firefighters had sought a safe place in the area to gather the residents of the urbanization, accompanied by three vehicles with members of the corps. The Sentmenat City Council had also evacuated a hundred people from the Guanta urbanization.

In the early afternoon, in fact, Civil Protection had already sent an ES-Alert to mobile phones to request the confinement of the population of the urbanizations of El Farell, Can Gurri, Sant Sebastià de Montmajor, El Balcó de Sant Llorenç, Sant Feliu del Racó, Nord de Castellar del Vallès, and Can Vinyals. In the alert message, residents of these urbanizations and scattered hamlets were asked to close doors and windows, not to go outside, and to follow the authorities' instructions.

Thousands of people confined in Anoia

The other major focus of concern for firefighters is the forest fire that has broken out in the municipality of Carme, in Anoia, which has forced around 33,000 people in the south of Igualada, La Pobla de Claramunt, Vilanova del Camí, Santa Margarida de Montbui, Castellolí, the Les Garrigues urbanization, La Torre de Claramunt, and the western part of the Capellades town to be confined. A hundred more firefighters are working to extinguish the flames.

In this case, the fire affects about 225 hectares and the main objective of the firefighters is to prevent the flames from crossing the C-15 and spreading to Montserrat, which would drastically increase the potential number of hectares burned and could lead to a multi-day fire. As Borrell explained initially, there was also a risk of a pyrocumulus cloud forming, similar to the fire in Les Gavarres last Friday. Although the chief inspector of the Firefighters admitted that they will have to wait a few hours to know if the two fires can be stabilized, he said that the work done at the beginning of the night allows them to be "optimistic".

Also, as good news, in the evening the firefighters had managed to stabilize the fire in Artesa de Segre. A situation that allowed them to focus efforts on the fires in Anoia and Sentmenat. However, Borrell explained that if the fire had not started in the upper part of Comiols – with a potential of 500 hectares – but in the lower part, it could have been a disaster, with a potential impact of 100,000 hectares.

Faced with this scenario, Borrell explained that beyond protecting people, the other two objectives are that no new fire grows and to avoid operational collapse. An example of operational saturation is the fact that the new active fires in Catalonia have prevented that of the Gavarres massif, which was declared last Friday, from being brought under control, after three days burning. The continuous flare-ups within the perimeter of 2,200 hectares burned and the need to allocate resources to other fires prevent it from being declared under control for now.