Before the rains of recent days, the fire campaign in Central Catalonia was expected to be extremely complicated after 30 accumulated months of drought. However, now the situation has changed and the Firefighters face the campaign "with relative calm." "The rains have given us a breather," stresses Santi Lleonart, director of the Central Emergency Region of the Generalitat Fire Department.
However, the emergency services warn that you cannot let your guard down. In fact, they warn that this is the first time in history that, before summer, they have seen leaves fall from trees in the seven regions of Central Catalonia, even on riverside trees. A clear indicator, they say, of the situation of water stress suffered by forests.
With this they do not mean that all these trees necessarily end up dying, but that there will be a part that will not be able to resist it. Last year, this had only been detected in Anoia, Bages and Solsonès. Instead, now it has already been seen in up to seven regions of Central Catalonia.
Torralba explained that, so far this year, the Rural Agents Corps has already carried out a total of 839 actions regarding forest fires, twice as many as in a "normal" year. The Alpha Plan has been activated for 118 days and the Montserrat massif has even had to be closed due to the high risk of fire.
One of the issues that most worries the Firefighters is the simultaneity of fires. In this sense, they remember that Sau, La Baells and La Llosa del Cavall continue to be inoperative.
On the other hand, since the fire in the Pont de Vilomara (Bages), which affected some thirty homes, a protocol has been drawn up to know how to act in the event that a fire affects a housing development. Firefighters has called for prudence and has recalled that 9 out of 10 fires are of human origin.
