The fire declared in the Segorbe area (Castellón), which during the afternoon of this Friday forced the evacuation of the Valencian municipality of Gátova, remains out of control and already affects part of the Sierra Calderona Natural Park. The fire has provisionally burned 423 hectares and has generated a perimeter of 11.4 kilometers, according to data provided by the Minister of Emergencies and Interior, Juan Carlos Valderrama, after the meeting of the Integrated Operational Coordination Center (Cecopi).
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The authorities have specified that not all the affected area is within the protected space of the Sierra Calderona, although the flames have indeed reached this natural park, one of the main forest areas in the region. The evolution of the fire in the coming hours will largely depend on the wind, humidity, and temperatures.
The head of the extinguishing operation at the Advanced Command Post (PMA), José Melitón, has acknowledged that the fire is currently “out of control,” although he explained that there are two active fronts where the extinguishing teams are “practically ready to act.”
“We are acting, in fact, with machinery and ground personnel,” Melitón said, showing relative optimism about the evolution during the night. According to him, the wind and humidity conditions could be somewhat more favorable for extinguishing efforts. “We will try to work in favor of that,” he pointed out.
Between 250 and 280 personnel are currently working in the operation, with shifts to maintain operational capacity throughout the night. At peak deployment hours, up to 340 personnel and about twenty aerial resources have been involved.
The evolution of the fire forced the emergency level to be raised to situation 2 of the Special Plan against the Risk of Forest Fires (PEIF) after weather conditions worsened at midday. During the morning, teams had made significant progress in containing the flames, with the intervention of eleven aerial resources, but the increase in wind later complicated the efforts.
Melitón explained that since midday there were “a series of complications” caused especially by the wind and the intensity it gained in the ravines. “It has complicated” the extinguishing, he admitted. The fire moved towards Gátova, while the high temperatures and dryness accumulated over these days also acted as adverse factors.
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Due to the proximity of the smoke, Emergencies sent an ES-Alert message at 15:02 to the mobile phones of the population of Gátova ordering their confinement. At 17:20 a second warning was issued recommending the evacuation of all inhabitants.
The minister highlighted that the evacuation was carried out “with total normality, with total civility, with total awareness of the population” and as a fundamentally preventive measure. The operation was designed to guarantee, first, the safety of people and, subsequently, to protect the municipality’s assets.
The president of the Generalitat, Juanfran Pérez Llorca, went to the PMA to convey a message of “calm” to the evacuated neighbors and nearby towns. “Work is being done in a very coordinated manner,” he said, before thanking the cooperation of the population and the municipal authorities of Gátova and Segorbe.
Pérez Llorca also emphasized the coordination between the different administrations, with the participation of the provincial fire consortia of Castellón and Valencia, forest firefighters of the Generalitat, the State Security Forces and Corps, and the Military Emergency Unit.
“What citizens want is fewer discussions and more solutions,” said the president, who defended that coordination between administrations is allowing them to face a summer especially complicated by forest fires in Spain and in the Valencian Community.
The priority in the coming hours will be to stabilize the two active fronts and prevent the fire from continuing to advance towards Gátova and inside the Sierra Calderona.
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