The Bombers urge people not to tempt fate by "abandoning the rural environment."
The Baix Ebre fire, which entered the stabilization phase at midday on Wednesday , has come close to becoming one of the most serious in modern Catalan history. The fire covered 3,321 hectares, but "tens of thousands" could have burned, Marc Castellnou, chief inspector of the Forestry Action Group (GRAF), admitted this afternoon from Tortosa. This experienced firefighter gave an account of the extinguishing strategy and the intense work carried out by the force since Monday—"one of the most complex fires in terms of the physical demands of the operatives," he said—and did not spare criticism regarding the neglect of the countryside and the need to "rethink the rural economy." " Farming ," he conceded, "is not just an agricultural product; it is also a matter of safety for the population."
Castellnou provided the technical and professional explanation for what many residents of municipalities such as Xerta, Paüls, and l'Aldover have been saying since the alert was issued on Monday about this fire, which has not reached the sixth-generation category but did present many elements that could have led to an unprecedented natural disaster. First, the presence of the Cardó mountain range, on the other side of the Ebro River. Second, the proximity, on the left flank, of the harshest, yet most beautiful, area of the Els Ports Natural Park: ravines, canals, peaks... In short, places where firefighters would not have been able to intervene because there are no roads for trucks and water supplies. All of this, peppered with terrain full of weeds and low forest, providing an ideal highway for the flames to spread.
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The Baix Ebre fire, as it stands, "was not an exceptional one" like, for example, the Segarra fire in early July, which left two dead and nearly 6,000 hectares destroyed. In that tragedy, the cloud (a pyrocumulus) was capable of generating, explained the head of GRAF, "a change in the atmosphere and its own meteorology." "In these cases," Castellnou asserted, "firefighters are no longer in control of the fire, and our room for maneuver is very limited." Not to mention being much more risky.
The figure of a Buddha, silent witness to the catastrophe
Carlos MárquezIn the case of Baix Ebre, the resolution even exceeded the expectations of the Fire Brigade. Knowledge of the terrain, adapting to the wind's behavior, and advancing quickly helped extinguish the fire. And, of course, the work of the more than 450 personnel deployed across the 30 linear kilometers affected. They knew, for example, that the strong winds that blow at high altitudes in these parts usually make landfall at dusk and early morning. Bingo. The graph of the energy emitted by the fire, calculated using probes sent by the Fire Brigade to the main column of the blaze, attests to this: between 9:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m. and shortly after dawn, the heat multiplied by five the ceiling above which personnel can suffer second-degree burns, even while wearing fire suits. These were the hours when the flames advanced the furthest eastward, even crossing the Ebro River in some sections, but fortunately not reaching the Cardó mountain range. This rapid escalation, which occurred on the night of Monday into Tuesday, provides a cruel contrast with a fire that occurred in the same place in 1993. Back then, the generously cultivated fields that are now almost nonexistent played a secondary—or primary—role, depending on how you look at it—as firebreaks. And so, in the current fire, towns like Xerta are mourning the fact that 70% of their municipal area (the urban area has been spared) has been scorched, and it will take decades to recover the lost landscape.
Read also The extinction will still take days to complete.The traditional climate dynamics in Terres de l'Ebre have worked in favor of extinguishing the fire, which will still take days to fully realize. But this strategic gallantry will not be enough in the future, something Castellnou summed up in a way that was as direct as it was lacking in subtlety: "This time it worked out for us, but we can't continue rolling the dice in these conditions; it may work out for us for one or two years, but in the long term we have to rethink it." In other words, the Fire Brigades are there to put out fires, but they are not the solution to reducing the number of fires. For that to happen, he recommended rethinking the rural economy and having "a well-managed and prepared territory." Working against them is the abandonment of grazing land and livestock farming in general, but also the decline of agriculture. As a senior officer in the force pointed out, if there are firefighters, the Administration should also have people clearing the forests.
Test passed in l'AnoiaThe fire that, simultaneously with the Baix Ebre fire, affected several municipalities in the Anoia and Bages regions on Tuesday, was practically under control yesterday afternoon. The Generalitat's Fire Brigade had already declared the blaze stabilized before 10:00 p.m. on Tuesday, after the fire, which started in a grain field in the municipality of Sant Pere Sallavinera and eventually spread into a wooded area, burned approximately 130 hectares of agricultural and forest land. Secondary fires were detected close to the initial focus and were quickly neutralized. The fight against this blaze mobilized around 50 ground personnel throughout Tuesday night, working tirelessly to prevent the flames from spreading further.
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