“Our Sierra de San Miguel has burned, only recently it was saved from another fire. Its a terrible shame. Such a beautiful natural space.”
These are the words of the Mayor of Calasparra, Jose Velez, who spent much of the night with fire fighters on the flanks of San Miguel.
Pained but also indignant the Mayor underlined that initial investigations pointed to an “intentional fire” which, despite the rapid response of the Plan Infomur team, could not be extinguished last night.
The Emergency Call Centre 112 received more than 50 calls from the public around 7.30pm when the fire started in various parts of the Sierra. One of the indictors that the fire was deliberately set and that it spread so rapidly.
The fire fighters of Plan Infomur were quickly on the scene and prioritised preventing the fire from spreading to the lower slopes. Helicopters from bases at Pila and Alcantarilla with fire fighters attended the scene and the helicopter “Kamov,” based in Caravaca (water carrier). However, as night fell the helicopters had to withdraw.
Firefighters came from Caravaca de la Cruz, Molina de Segura, Cieza and Lorca to join a hundred members of fire brigades from Calasparra, Mula, Caravaca and Cehegín, as well as volunteers from Civil Protection of Calasparra, Bullas, Caravaca, Cehegín and Mula.
The local police and the Guardia Civil report that no-one was hurt in the fire but various houses in the countryside and near the Running Track complex were evacuated.
Fire fighters remained on the scene during the night and at 5am this morning, Saturday, the fire was declared “under control.”
Still in the area of the fire are 24 land fire fighters; 14 helicopter fire crews; seven environmental officers; two technicians from the General Directorate of the Natural Environment; as well as 16 volunteers from the Protection Civil of Cehegín, Caravaca and Calasparra.
WITNESSES REPORT EXPLOSIONS
The Mayor has confirmed that “some people who were walking in the area confirmed they heard small explosions, which leads us to suspect they are same arsonists as previous summers.”
In summer 2010 almost a thousand hectares burned, with two seats of fire six kilometres apart.
Last summer, again on the Molino, another 250 hectares burned.
