The forest fire declared this Friday in the Casella de Alzira area (Valencia) has been considered stabilized this Saturday around 8:00 p.m., after calcining some 40 hectares and after a day in which the fire has maintained a “very positive” but which has remained at the gates of the natural area of ??La Murta and La Casella. However, the preventive evacuation of the evacuees is maintained, who will not be able to return to their homes until this Sunday.
This has been indicated by the general director of the Interior of the Generalitat, Salva Almenar, from the Advanced Command Post (PMA) of the fire after chairing a meeting late this Saturday afternoon.
Five aerial means (three from the Generalitat and two FOCA from the Ministry for Ecological Transition) and a hundred firefighters including personnel from the Provincial Consortium, foresters from the Generalitat and volunteers have worked on the fire throughout the day.
Almenar has indicated that precisely “all the work” of the different media has allowed the fire to be stabilized at 8:00 p.m. and “save” the natural area of ??La Murta and La Casella, where the fire has remained at the gates. From now on, he has affirmed, “a new scenario” opens, although he has asked “not to lower our guard”.
Thus, the general director has assured that during this next night land units will continue to work on the ground, although “obviously some means will be de-escalated” that have been used this Saturday. In any case, fifty people “will stay tonight throughout the length and breadth” of the affected area, he indicated.
Along these lines, he stated that during this day, despite the fact that there have been times when the weather “has not been very favourable”, the work of the air resources cooling the area and that of the ground units that, “with manual tools, They have managed to seal the perimeter, it has reduced a lot of the risk factors”. “So much so that fortunately throughout the afternoon we have not had any reproduction within the perimeter, just some smoke that the aerial means have quickly extinguished,” he detailed.
Almenar has highlighted that it has been possible to “save” the natural area of ??La Murta, of “inestimable value for all Valencians”, since it is “an environmental enclave of high ecological value”.
On the other hand, he has reported that another of the decisions that has been agreed is to maintain the preventive evacuation of the evicted residents throughout the night. “It is true that we have stabilized the fire, but it is no less true that there is still a risk,” she argued.
“Both the mayor –of Alzira– and the rest of the technicians that we have seen fit to leave that decision for tomorrow morning. Allow a few more hours to pass, verify that there will be no reproduction and that the perimeter is cool”, has exposed. In any case, he has insisted that early this Sunday “the situation will be reassessed and it will be when a decision is made in this regard.”
A POSSIBLE NEGLIGENCE BEHIND THE START OF THE FIRE
Finally, asked about the causes of the fire, Almenar has remarked, in line with what has progressed at noon –Emergencias is considering possible imprudence or human negligence as the cause of the start of the fire–, that the first investigations “indicate that there was no no meteorological phenomenon that makes us think that the fire was caused by any of these situations”.
“The first hypotheses point to the fact that the hand of man may be behind the origin of this fire. I am not talking about it being an arson attack, simply that the action of man may be behind it, but I cannot provide you with any information about it. “, he continued.
