A distress flare belonging to the US Navy was fished out and left on Burriana beach in Nerja on Friday and was made harmless by Spanish Navy specialists.

Earlier this year, in March, another one was washed up onto a Benalmádena beach. This kind of flare is used both by navies as well as shipping in general because they burn even in the water and are difficult to miss if lit.

The device was discovered by a local fisherman, José Cabello, last Friday but it wasn’t reported to the police until Monday morning.

José Cabello had pulled it up out of the water and deposited it on the beach because he thought that it was only an old fire extinguisher or something of that kind, not realising that it was potentially dangerous. He left it there for the workers who clean up the beaches to take care of.

But they didn’t and it remained on the beach the whole weekend…

The distress flares had the “US Navy” on the casing, as well as “Danger” and “Do Not Handle,” which was why two foreign beach goers who use that beach each morning told the fisherman to inform the police

The Guardia Civil cordoned off the beach near the rocks where the fishermen (he was helped by a colleague) had placed the artefact once they were aware of the danger involved.

The Spanish Navy were called in to handle the situation. It took three attempts to detonate the flare and when it did go off, it let off dense smoke, as it is designed to, and burned for about half an hour.

The beach was reopened to the public at 17.00h having taken two hours to make it harmless.

(News: Nerja, Axarquia, Costa del Sol, Malaga – photo: frame from video)