We’ve been following the development of the huge blaze 30 kilometres from the city of Madrid most of the day; the blaze started around two in the morning, probably involving arson – it’s been raining solid for most of the week so it would have to be deliberate.

The BBC started to cover the incident after lunch, quoting El Pais and the Guardian, amongst other sources, but there are interesting facts not mentioned.

Firstly, the owner of the dump, declared illegal some years ago – the dump; not the owner – has been on the run after being sentenced to a 3-month, suspended sentence and fined some 600,000 euros.

The dump, situated on the outskirts of Seseña (Castilla-La Mancha), was set up in 1990, declared illegal in 2003 and in 2010 the regional government took over the dump with the idea of cleaning it up.

However, although it was closed, illegal dumping continued to take place with the dump afterwards sprawling outside its original fenced-in boundary and crossing the regional border into the region of Madrid; invading the municipality of Valdemoro, which is precisely the area of the dump where the fire started.

Secondly although the figure of 70,000 tonnes of tyres is mentioned, the total number of tyres isn’t; it’s actually a staggering five million tyres! The dump, by the was is the largest in Europe covering the equivalent of eleven football pitches in extension.

Thirdly, the authorities are worried about the weather because until now, the toxic smoke has been going up (reaching a kilometre in height) but more rain is expected which will bring the lot down upon the neighbouring towns – already around 1,000 people have been evacuated from the nearby, Urbanización El Quiñón.

Lastly, it is very difficult to actually get a tyre to catch light, but once it has, it is even more difficult to put out. A fire last July involving a much smaller tyre dump in Castilla-León took two weeks to put out…

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(News: Seseña, Toledo)