The west wind returned, with speeds of more than 50 kilometers per hour, and the fire that has been affecting Castellón and Teruel since Wednesday has regained life when it began to be limited on Saturday. So much so that it was feared that the flames would exceed the perimeter that until this afternoon remained stable to enter the natural area of ??the Sierra de Espadán. “This is now our biggest concern,” the regional secretary for Emergency and Security of the Generalitat Valenciana, José María Angel, told this newspaper. And he also warned that it was not ruled out that the residents of Cirat, a town in the Alto Millares region, in the province of Castellón, would be forced to evict. “At this moment we continue to be interested in the situation of the neighbors, if there are people who are sick or with some kind of need to have everything planned,” he added.
The west wind, a humidity of 20% and high temperatures, almost 30 degrees, have formed a perfect, explosive combination, to make things worse. In the extinction work, in which almost 600 troops and 20 air units participated, it was necessary to fight hard to be able to work in the Maigmona ravine, near Villanueva de Viver. “The complexity of the orography prevents the ground resources of the troops from entering that ravine” points out José María Angel. The hope was the action of the air resources, but late at night they had to stop operating. That’s when the danger could come.
The priority was to prevent the entry of the flames into the Sierra de Espadán. Lines of defense have been established so that the fire does not affect the Natural Park like various firebreaks. “We are prepared and mentalized to face the problem”, has warned the high representative of the Generalitat Valenciana.
The extinction task has also been intensified to prevent the advance of the fire towards the towns of Montán and Montanejos (CV-195 and CV-20). However, around 5:00 p.m. the fire had approached the CV-20 and was about to jump the road as a result of the voracity of the flames. The balance of razed land remained stable, about 4,000 hectares and about 40 kilometers in diameter, at the expense of what could happen in the next few hours. On the Teruel front, they also continued to be alert, with a profusion of human troops. Like yesterday, teams from various autonomies worked in a coordinated manner in both provinces.
Greenpeace valued yesterday that the fire that is still active in Castellón and Teruel confirms that “in times of climate emergency, the management of our forests is urgent.” In a statement from the organization, its spokesperson in Spain, Mónica Parrilla, warned that in Spain the increase in temperatures and droughts make forest masses more flammable. “This, added to the lack of forest management, creates the perfect scenario for fires,” she added. Parrilla warned that “every time we are witnessing more massive evictions and thousands of hectares affected. The fires, in a context of climate change and with the lack of management of our forests, are an environmental and civil security problem”. And she defended that fires should be at the top of the political agendas and should not be addressed when heat and fire arrive, “but by preventing”
