The Junta de Andalucía has had its Infoca personnel out doing something that occupies most of their time and that is keeping the campo tidy.

While there are still a few out-of-fire-season fires to tackle, Infoca firefighters are out making sure firebreaks are clear, creating new ones, cutting back vegetation from the sides of road, lopping off lower branches and thinning out pines, etc.

This fire-prevention work takes place between the 1st of January and the 31st of May, which is when the fire season begins (lasting until the 15th of October) and they need that amount of time because just in the province of Granada alone, there are 548 hectares of woodlands to process.

The Junta, provincial bigwig, Manuel Francisco García, visited one of the crews working within the Parque Natural de Sierra Nevada, along the access road to the Urbanización de Cumbres Verdes above La Zubia.

He explained that as well as this kind of fire-prevention measures, there is also the Red de Áreas Pasto-Cortafuegos (RAPCA), in other words, cooperation with shepherds to have the excess vegetation along firebreaks eaten: happy goats/sheep, happy farmers and happy Infoca.

For example, during last year, 37 flocks, comprising of 11,380 goats and sheep, were hired to chew through 1,085 hectares of firebreaks and firebreak areas within the province.

(News: Granada)