Oviedo (EFE).- The President of the Principality of Asturias, Adrián Barbón, has assured today that in the wave of fires that the community is experiencing they are seeing “organized actions” that are carried out “with the clear objective of doing harm, not to neglected forests, but in the best managed ones”, those of forest exploitation.
“Forests that are well worked are being fully attacked,” he stressed after insisting that they still do not know what the objective of these actions is and to encourage citizens to report when they see suspicious actions.
Precisely, the manager of the Principality’s Emergency Service, Óscar Rodríguez, has indicated that this morning the presence of two young men with hoods was reported when a fire started in Onís and that flashlights were also seen in Salas before starting a fire with several spotlights.
“It is an attack against Asturias, the work of terrorists with a lighter who are endangering human lives,” said the Asturian president, who is clear, because people are reporting it and because the investigations also lead to it, “that they are intentional ”.
The president of Asturias, Adrián Barbón, goes to the area of the fires to find out the evolution
Barbón has traveled today to the command post in Puerma (Las Regueras), to see first-hand the evolution of the fire that has been active in this council since yesterday, to which 60 troops and 23 vehicles from the Military Unit of Emergencies (UME) and the Tineo BRIF to support firefighters from La Morgal, Pravia, Grado and Proaza and personnel from a forestry cooperative in their extinction efforts.
In total, 130 professionals on the ground, a seaplane from the ministry and five helicopters are acting on a fire that at 2:00 p.m. was almost stabilized.
Of the thirty that are active or under review in different parts of the community, the one in Las Regueras, in the vicinity of Oviedo, is the one that is concentrating the most media and the one that is most concerned about its proximity to different locations.
For Barbón, “it is almost a miracle that there have been no victims” and that the weather on this occasion is allowing the use of aerial means to fight the flames.
Barbón, who has thanked the state support that Asturias is receiving and the interest that the president, Pedro Sánchez, has shown in the evolution of the fires and the needs, has called for unity in the face of this situation and to avoid electoral and partisan use.
In clear allusion to the popular candidate for the Presidency of the Principality, Diego Canga, who has also visited some burned areas today. Barbón has pointed out that he has not been caught by the fires hundreds of kilometers away, but stuck to the ground and seeing many people cry, and that he has not questioned the intention that many fires have been caused.
Asturias raises alert level 2
Asturias has kept alert level 2 of the Principality’s Fire Protection Plan (INFOPA) activated since yesterday, which is launched when the fire can seriously affect the population and the help of extraordinary means is necessary, such as the HUME military , air resources of the Ministry and the BRIF of Asturias, Cantabria, León and Orense.
The Principality had placed INFOPA in phase zero last Sunday, due to weather conditions that helped put an end to the wave of fires that the community had been experiencing since March 23 and which, according to initial estimates, could have burned some 20,000 hectares. .
However, Barbón has clarified that the exact number of burned hectares will not be known until the end of next week and that on those days the aid that the regional government is preparing to alleviate the damage will be ready.
The risk of forest fires being declared tomorrow will be “extreme” in 21 councils, nine less than today, but it will remain “very high” in the remaining 57 municipalities, according to the indicator prepared daily by the General Directorate of Rural Infrastructures and Forestry. Principality of Asturias.
The State Meteorological Agency forecasts that temperatures this Sunday will remain somewhat below yesterday’s, although they will exceed 20 degrees in many parts of the interior and in councils in the southwest, Picos de Europa and the mountains.
For tomorrow, a greater drop in temperatures and some light rains are expected in the afternoon, which will be accompanied by intervals of westerly winds, more intense on the coast and in mountain areas.