As long as nobody goes wild with a box of matches, this summer is going to go down as the best in a decade, given the low number of major fires.
This is because the rapid intervention of Infoca units catches outbreaks before they can develop into a sizeable blaze. In fact, there have only been ten fires that have affected over one hectare; the rest, representing 85% of the total, were caught before they could spread.
The Head of the Centro Operativo Provincial (COP) del Plan Infoca en Granada, Antonio Sánchez Anguita, said that the key to this success can be found in there being 624 personnel covering the province, from firefighters facing of the flames, to clerks, from people manning the lookouts dotted across the province to radio operators back in the bases.
This figure climbs to 700, if you take into account the pilots & maintenance crews because Granada has the largest quota of aircraft; i.e., nine.
From the 1st of January to the 30th of August there were 68 fires, which affected 1,245 hectares that we can divide into forestland, 740 ha; grassland 274 ha, farmland 215 ha and urban outskirts, 16 ha.
Investigating fires is a complicated business precisely because in remote forestal areas there are no cameras nor eyewitness to pinpoint the cause.
Experts examine large stones and rocks to see what side they have protected small plants, even the direction that insects take to escape an advancing fire. This all shows which way the fire was heading, so it’s a case of the laborious tasks of tracing it backwards. Sometimes they find discarded containers for accelerants such as petrol or even a cigarette butt.
As for the percentages showing the causes behind fires, 60% are produced through negligence (not putting a bonfire out correctly, for instance) then 20% are deliberate; some are lit by pyromaniacs, others through a grudge against a neighbour.
Of course, there is another category accounting for, 10% which are through natural causes such as lightning strikes. Lastly some are caused by road accidents; a car hits a tree and catches fire or something as bizarre as a bird getting electrocuted and failing to the ground smouldering.
(News: Granada, Andalucia)
Tags: News, Andalucia, Granada, Infoca, Forest Fires, Hill fires, Hectare, Personnel, Aircraft, Arson, Accidents