They are watching their phones and the sky all day, in case a column of smoke forms again. The neighbors also watch roads and highways, in case they see any suspicious movement. The ADF volunteers barely get any sleep and, in addition to the firefighters, forest agents, Civil Guard, and Mossos remain deployed on the ground. In the mountains behind Santes Creus (Aiguamúrcia), in the extensive and lush forests of this part of Alt Camp, northern Penedès, and southern Anoia, they have been on alert for ten days. Six fires and several reactivations of the fire have raised alarms. Everything indicates that an arsonist is on the loose.
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The chain of fires and their suspicious initial sources point to intentional action. “In the area, we had never experienced a situation like this, people are worried, there is unease,” says Òscar Sendra, mayor of Aiguamúrcia, where the first fires were declared, which later affected the neighboring municipalities of Querol, Pontons, Torrelles de Foix, and La Llacuna. The concern is such that the neighbors proposed organizing themselves into groups to patrol paths. The mayors had to calm things down: “People have understood that what they should do is stay alert and if they see something suspicious, call the Mossos.”
The Catalan police and forest agents continue investigating. They have ruled out some initial suspicions and are following other leads with all possible discretion.
The smell of burning comes and goes as one moves around the area. Firefighters, ADF, and police vehicles, also in plain clothes, circulate on the roads. The first fire occurred on Wednesday, July 8, then others on Saturday and Sunday. The latter, which started in the so-called ‘Hell Valley,’ forced the evacuation of two residential areas (about 220 people), the confinement of more than 2,000 residents of the five municipalities, and ended up affecting 155 hectares of forest.
This week several reactivations were recorded within the affected perimeter and then, on Thursday at two in the afternoon, a new fire was declared one kilometer away from the burned area. The flames advanced very quickly at first, but the strong response from the ADF and firefighters, both with aerial and ground resources – there were already about twenty in the area – allowed the fire to be stabilized by six in the afternoon. “We are attentive to the noise of the helicopters, every time we hear one we go out to see if there is smoke…,” explains a resident of one of the residential areas evacuated on Monday.
The day before yesterday, a new scare. Before seven in the morning, another column of smoke was spotted about 25 meters from where the flames stopped on Thursday. “We have been watching since last weekend; we haven’t stopped, people are very worried…,” explains Josep Tutusaus, mayor and ADF volunteer of Pontons.
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Besides the damage caused by the flames, there is particular concern about the potential destruction that an uncontrolled fire would cause in this very forested environment, also known as the ‘lung of Penedès.’ Now, a powder keg. “We have gone more than a month without rain, with very low humidity and very high temperatures,” points out Sendra. In addition, these are very large municipalities – Aiguamúrcia and Querol exceed 73 square kilometers – where the population mostly lives scattered in residential areas and isolated farmhouses.
Precisely to reassure the neighbors and give them tools to respond in case of emergency, the Querol City Council organized a talk on Friday afternoon in the social hall of Ranxos, one of its five residential areas (about fifty people live in the town center and about 600 in the residential areas). The mayor, Roser Burzón, updated the fire situation and Eva Yera, psychologist and psychotherapist, spoke about emotions and explained strategies and techniques to manage stress in situations like those being experienced these days.
On this occasion, the mayors of the affected municipalities agree in highlighting the good coordination that has taken place with the firefighters and the Government and the work being carried out by the ADF volunteers. The Minister of the Interior, Núria Parlon, already warned last weekend that surveillance in the area would be reinforced, not only to try to locate the alleged arsonist but also to monitor the residential areas that were evacuated during the largest fire. Three days later, last Wednesday, the minister and the President of the Government, Salvador Illa, met with the mayors of the affected municipalities. Precisely that day, two reactivations were recorded within the burned perimeter.
At that meeting, the mayor of Aiguamúrcia, Òscar Sendra, raised the need for these municipalities with so much forest mass to have more financial and legal resources to, for example, maintain the paths in good condition. “They have to give us the tools to be able to manage… we need paths four meters wide so trucks can pass in case of emergencies,” he points out. Sendra also highlights the commitment to forest management that the municipality has carried out in recent years and the important role of crops, especially vineyards, which helped stop the advance of the flames.
“We will be very forceful; we will investigate, pursue, and find the people who caused the fires and bring them to justice so that the full weight of the law falls on them,” warned the Minister of Territory, Silvia Paneque, on Friday after a meeting in Tarragona. For now, mayors and neighbors are on the phone all day. The siege is maximum. These days, while in Santes Creus the Disney movie Rapunzel is being filmed with a spectacular deployment of resources, a few kilometers away they hope to end as soon as possible the nightmare that this start of summer has become.
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