I TOUCH WET WOOD

It is a good news story and one I thought readers in Andalucía should know about. Yet I also knew the penning of it was tempting fate for a cigarette end tossed from a car or a pyromaniac at work could suddenly change the low level of summer fires in Andalucía this year.

The message from the regional government is clear. There is an extremely high risk of a major blaze, people should not lower their guard, yet the number of fires so far this summer is less than half the normal annual average – but don’t relax your vigilance.

The director general of the management of the natural areas for the Andalucía government, Javier Madrid, has told the Efe news agency that the intensive winter and spring rains have maintained a high level of humidity in the Andalucía forests. The high temperatures of July and August are causing a drying out effect and as they do so the risk of fires increases.

Another cause of forest and scrubland blazes are the dry storms. Lightning without any accompanying rain has caused major damage in past years to the Cazorla, Segura and Las Villas national parks.

Madrid stressed there had been no cut back in the Infoca specialist fire teams. Up to August 12 they had tackled 335 incidents but that was half the average over the last decade. The statistics for hectares damaged by fires is even more impressive. Again on average over the last decade by August 12 7,774.21 hectares would have been ablaze compared with 442.57 to the same date of this year.

There is some way to go before Andalucía can relax and hopefully look back on a good summer with low fire totals. The period during which there is a high risk of fires runs to October 15 and it takes just one simple act of carelessness to dramatically alter the final outcome.

In the days since I penned those words there have been no major infernos. We have had heavy thunderstorms instead – very wet ones indeed – with three people being killed in Córdoba province. Yet as I write this thunder is rumbling around – has been all afternoon – without any significant rainfall so I have to hope that by now the woodlands are wet enough again to withstand any dry lightning strikes.

Touch wet wood for a summer of record low fires!

A DOG TURD POINTS THE WAY

With the autumn rains fast approaching Spain’s specialist fire teams of Infoca could be excused for slapping themselves on the back after another summer without any major blazes in Málaga province. Then the Estepona fire struck and destroyed more land than has been burnt in wild fires in the province in the last three years.

The fire started in the area of the San Isidro Labrador municipal park in Estepona last Wednesday and quickly spread thanks to the strong winds in the direction of Casares. It was not till Friday that Infoca declared the fire was fully controlled although operatives stayed on duty to ensure there were no flare ups.

Initial estimates suggested the fire had burned 600 hectares of scrub and tree covered hillside but that was later revised down to 520 hectares. The over calculation is easy to explain because of the difficult terrain, the same problem that hindered fire teams in tackling the flames.

In the last three years around 500 hectares has been burnt in wild fires in Málaga province so the Estepona fire exceeded that large area. It was also the third worst fire in the last decade after Cortes de la Frontera in 2006 which destroyed 660 hectares and Mijas in 2001 which burnt 1,100 hectares.

The Brigada de Investigación is working on the theory that the fire was started deliberately in the San Isidro Labrador park after receiving information from a worker who saw somebody leaving the area hurriedly just before the blaze took hold. On visiting the scene it is plain to see how the fire started near the shrine and then took off with the wind towards Casares.

There were major concerns that the inferno would damage historical and valuable environmental sites in the fire’s path. The 5,000 year old Megalithic Necropolis at Corominas in Estepona has not suffered structural damage from the flames and fire fighters were on standby to protect the Monte del Duque, an area of high ecological value in Casares, but the inferno passed it by.

Now what has this got to do with a dog turd I hear you cry?

Well as I walked across the burnt out land I happened upon said turd. It was not a common style doggie doo but shaped so that it had a finger like protrusion pointing towards heaven. It had survived the raging inferno, was certainly baked but now held firm. A sign surely that whilst devastation may be all around us we can still cock our leg at life.

Is he barking mad?

Woof, I reply!

Stop Press: on Thursday it was announced that an Estepona woman had been arrested on suspicion of starting the fire. Police tracked her down after acting on information supplied by eye witnesses. She has appeared in court and been released on bail as the judge did not believe she would flee. The mayors of Estepona and Casares have stated they will demand the full weight of the law is brought to bare on any person convicted.

ENTERTAINER GOES UP IN SMOKE

I am sure that like me you have seen the fires on TV that have ravaged Spain especially around Mojácar. I knew my good friend Lenox Napier lived in those parts but was shocked to receive an email from him to say much of his land, outbuildings and peacocks had gone up in smoke. Thankfully Lenox, his wife Barbara and her horses that she uses in her therapy work with disabled people through her charity, Animo, are all safe.

We are all used to seeing forest – summer fires on TV, sometimes vivid pictures from California - but everybody who has lived in rural southern Spain will have been confronted by this terrifying seasonal spectacle. Mercifully the infernos are often quickly brought under control by brave fire teams both on the land and in the air...but not always, as was the Mojácar experience.

Firemen were recently killed in Spain when engulfed by the flames. I experienced a horrific close escape in South Africa. Whilst staying with friends about 30 kms from Jo’burg a fire started on adjacent land. We all rushed out to try to stem the blaze in a nearby field when suddenly the wind changed direction and sent the flames roaring towards us. We literally escaped by inches as the inferno raced past engulfing all in its path.

Lenox is the great grandson several times over of Lord Napier who amongst other distinctions was a Governor of Gibraltar. He has lived in Spain for many a year and was the publisher of the much lamented “Entertainer” – one of the most popular newspapers on coastal Spain in the 1980s and 1990s. Indeed it was back in 1993 that I started penning my Gibraltar column for “The Entertainer” – and Lenox kindly gave me a book about the Rock which I use as a reference to this day.

I shed a tear for the lost of Lenox’s peacocks, birds which I happen to adore, but also join him in lamenting the loss of the first ten years of archive copies of “The Entertainer” that sadly lie amongst the ashes of one of his outhouses. A little bit of publishing history is lost for ever.

I bring you a photo of the Mojácar fire from Lenox’s own website but you can read all about it in graphic detail at:

http://spanishshilling.blogspot.com/

http://www.theentertaineronline.com/news.php