Another seven vehicles ended up as burnt-out wrecks as a result of a fire in a car park in Torrox on Friday - and it is not the first time.

It was on the 20th of December that a total of 18 vehicles were destroyed by fire in a nearby, municipal parking area.

In the early hours of Friday the 18th a Policía Local patrol came across seven vehicles (cars and vans) parked on the Llano del Cerrillo, not far from the La Almedina Parking  – it was around 03.00h.

In fact, the affected cars were parked hardly 200 metres from the police station.

They pulled up and tried to put the fires out with their fire extinguishers whilst at the same time alerting the fire service. Even with the fire personnel in action, it took three hours to put the flaming vehicles out.

The Guardia Civil have opened an investigation into the incident and have linked it to the one just over a month ago when the 18 vehicles were torched.

The Mayor, Óscar Medina (PP), said that they are working on setting up CCTV surveilance cameras within the municipal car parks and other public parking areas.

There have been other fires recently, such as in the Cortijada los Pérez de Benajarafe, (Vélez-Málaga) when two cars went up.

The Mayor of Vélez Málaga, Francisco Delgado (PP), criticised the lack of police officers (Guardia Civil) because the numbers have gone down from 120 officers to only 80 in the area in the last decade.

Editorial Comment: he is right to criticise these cuts in the number of Guardia Civil personnel, but he could have mentioned that it was not a good idea when the Central Government under Mariano Rajoy (PP) announced the decision to reduce the number of Guardia Civil personnel.

(News: Torrox, Axarquia, Costa del Sol, Malaga, Andalucia – Photo E. Cabezas)