There have been three fires up on Sierra Nevada in the space of only eleven days, the last two on the same day.

Fire personnel from the Parque Sur de Granada had to tackle a fire near the A-395 in an apero (farm toolshed).

The second fire was near the Centro de Alto Rendimiento Deportivo, more or less at kilometre point 35 on the A-395 where a car had caught on fire.

Those two fires, which took place last weekend, follow the one at the end of November when it was necessary to evacuate a family from their home. When the fire service arrived, there was little that they could do to save the dwelling.

Readers might remember the fire in 2014 when a wooden hotel within the resort was destroyed by fire. Ever since then, the same problem persists – Sierra Nevada does not have its own fire station meaning that one of the two fire stations down in the city of Granada has to despatch vehicles and crews to deal with any fire up there.

The distance that they have to cover means that it uses up valuable time (approx 30 minutes) just to reach the ski resort and sometimes, it’s not even guaranteed that they can reach it if snow has cut the road.

There was once a detachment of fire personnel based on the ski resort in 1996, which was when the World Ski Championships was held there but since then there are no fire personnel present at the ski resort, even during the busiest periods of the ski season.

A few days ago the Provincial Council offered to pay 50% of the cost of having fire personnel in place during the ski season but as yet, the Junta de Andalucia (part owners of Cetursa, the company that runs the ski resort) and the Monachil Town Hall, within whose municipality the ski resort lies, haven’t made any commitment.

(News: Sierra Nevada, Granada, Andalucia)