The regional forest firefighting service, Infoca, declared the hill fire behind Maro (Nerja) as extinguished at 17.00h on the Wednesday the 26th.

The fire had broken out in the evening (19.00h) of the previous day in the area of Río de La Miel within the Parque Natural de las Sierras Tejeda, Almijara y Alhama.

The fire damage was five hectares of mountain shrub and sparse pines, and two hectares of mainly grassland, according to Infoca, which publishes this information on social media.

Infoca deployed air and land units to tackle the fire: two light helicopters and one heavy, twin-rotor one, plus two aircraft (Air Tractor, which take on water at base), which were withdrawn at dusk.

As for personnel, around 25 firefighters backed by two 4×4 fire trucks. At one point their ranks were swollen to 76 firefighters, backed by five helicopters and three aircraft.

At one point the MA-6102 (Río de Miel access road) had to be closed to traffic before being reopened allowing residents in the rural area to return to their homes. However many houses were left without electricity owing to the damage done to electricity lines

By 21.30h they had the fire boxed in

As for what had caused the fire, although the exact cause has not been established, it is thought that it might have been caused by an HT line in this very abrupt terrain, somewhere below the old quarry.

(News: Maro, Axarquia, Costa del Sol, Malaga, Andalucia)

Kewords: Maro Hill Fire, Quarry, HT lines, Infoca, Helicopters, Firefighters, Mountain Shrub, Extinguished, Aircraft, Air Tractor

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