As promised yesterday, here is the latest on the Polopos fire, which began a little before 13.00h, which was the time that the emergency services were alerted.
The fire, which caused local roads to be closed temporarily to traffic, required at one point nearly 100 fire fighters, six fire trucks and twelve aircraft (both fixed and rotorary) to bring under control and finally put out.
The area affected was the Haza del Lino, which has one of the oldest cork-oak trees in Spain, as well as the biggest mediterranean forestland reserves in the south of Spain containing alcornoques (cork oak) at least 150 years old. For this reason, the efforts of Infoca were concentrated on preventing the fire reaching this area.
The aircraft deployed were four helicopters used for transporting personnel and waterbombing (they are equipped with underslung water buckets which are attatched once they have delivered the fire fighters to the fire line) one twin-rotor, heavy lift helicopter (Kamov), three single-engine water bombers operating from an infoca airfield where they take on the water load, and a coordination aircraft.
The fire was declared “controlled” by 21.30h with the remaining 20 personnel still deployed tasked with putting out and damping down the last areas still burning.
#Andalucía | Activo #IF en Polopos #Granada. HT seguimiento #IFPolopos https://t.co/xKbTcpBMMV
— Incendios España (@IncendiosES) August 22, 2020
Gran trabajo de lxs #BBFF de @Plan_INFOCA en #IFPolopos que ya se encuentra estabilizado https://t.co/f10oU4XZ2F
— UGTbomberosforestales (@ugtbomberofores) August 22, 2020
#IFPolopos ( #Granada). #IIFF https://t.co/5GkKwHRFvL
— InfoMeteoTuit (@InfoMeteoTuit) August 22, 2020
(News: Polopos, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)