A large device made up of ground forces and aerial means -helicopters and airplanes- that will be incorporated throughout the morning continue working to try to stop the advance of the fire in the forest fire declared yesterday in the municipality of Villanueva de Viver, in the border area of the provinces of Castellón and Teruel.
During the night, the efforts have focused on protecting the population centers that had already been evicted due to the proximity of the flames or the presence of smoke from the fire, described as "important and early" by sources of Emergencies of the Generalitat Valenciana and of the Provincial Council of Castellón.
The evicted towns or population centers, all of them with a low population census, are Fuente la Reina, Los Calpes, Los Cantos, La Monzona, Puebla de Arenoso, Montanejos, Montán and Arañuel, with between 800 and a thousand residents who have had to leave their homes and spend the night in shelters or sports centers set up for this purpose.
Technical Unit @GVAagroambientIn the last few hours, 10 forestry units, four forestry brigades, 11 fire trucks and seven support vehicles have been deployed, in addition to two ambulances and complementary units of the health emergency services.
Four helicopters, three planes, three helitransported brigades, 4 planes and troops from the Military Emergency Unit (UME) will gradually be incorporated into the extinction tasks, sources from the Generalitat Emergencies have reported.
The fire, which in a first estimate has reached a perimeter of about a thousand hectares with 800 burned hectares, has originated in a ravine with a large forest mass and surrounded by forests of high environmental value.
The area, with a high risk of depopulation, has a great incentive in natural tourism since its mountain routes, its landscapes and, especially, the thermal tourism that goes to Montanejos are a great attraction for visitors.
The territorial delegation of the State Meteorological Agency foresees unfavorable conditions in the extinction of the fire due to the west wind and the expected high temperatures.
In fact, as he explains in his Twitter account, the unfavorable weather conditions, especially taking into account the date of the year so early, have been what have led to the rapid spread of the forest fire, since at 3:00 p.m. this Thursday there was a south and southwest wind, relative humidity below 30 percent and almost 25 degrees of temperature.
Although on the surface the wind in the area of the fire was from the south and southeast, from 1,500-2,000 meters the wind turned to the west and southwest, hence the expansion of the plume of the smoke column to the northeast.
The south and southeast wind predominant in the fire was blowing with gusts of 30 km/h during the afternoon, although at night the intensity of the wind tends to decrease and gusts of close to 15 km/h were forecast and to turn west.
However, it warned that a western front is approaching the area, with high cloudiness and no rain. Although the intensity of the wind dropped at dawn, Aemet forecasts that the weather conditions as of this Friday morning will once again be unfavorable, with a west wind that will accelerate, with gusts of 40 km/h since morning.
In addition, the forecasts suggest that it will again be a very warm day for these dates, with a forecast humidity of less than 20% at 2:00 p.m. and a temperature at 3:00 p.m. above 20 degrees. Precisely, the maximum on Thursday in the area of the fire, of almost 25, is about 10 degrees higher than normal for these dates and yes, typical of mid-June.
In addition, he added that this hydrological year is turning out to be particularly dry in the area, where since October 1, 2022, 130 liters per square meter have accumulated, which is half of what is normal in these six months. According to Aemet, the deficit is even greater in these first three months of 2023, since the accumulated rain since January 1 is 15 l/m2, when the normal would be 115, that is, the deficit for the quarter is 87 percent. in the fire area.
