Sierra Bermeja: a month and a half to eliminate a fire that has turned everything upside down

• Sierra Bermeja Fire: What Now?

• The day after Travel through the ashes of the Sierra Bermeja fire: "This is a war"

46 days, 1,104 hours with its minutes and seconds. That is the time it took for

the fire that left the Sierra Bermeja, in the province of Malaga, to

, stained with mourning inside and out. Long after September 14 was considered controlled, the fire has continued to live in the subsoil of the mountains of Genalguacil, Júzcar or Jubrique, to name some of the municipalities in which the flames have left a mark that will be indelible during decades. For forty days the agony of that uncontrollable monster has lasted, forty days in which, hidden under the earth or under the rocks, it has struggled to survive until its

.

Only this Sunday, just

after the alarm was raised before the first column of smoke, the fire that, if not the most extensive, has been officially extinguished - because there have been more affected areas, such as that of Doñana or Riotinto - yes it has been, and the experts agree on that, the most complicated to control and liquidate. Never before in Andalusia had a forest disaster of these characteristics been registered, with such a great destructive capacity and with such speed. To the extent that, at some point, it was uncontrollable and only the fleeting appearance of the rain prevented the worst.

With 8,401.61 hectares covered by the fire and 7,664.69 hectares of affected forest area, the Sierra Bermeja fire had many of the characteristics of what experts call sixth generation fires, capable of creating a specific microclimate and

that can cause a real rain of fire. Similar to the

that cause nuclear explosions, in Sierra Bermeja its threat was felt, although its destructive power was not put to the test. Fortunately.

Regardless of the last name you want to give it, this fire has turned everything upside down. It has been, says the deputy director of the Regional Operational Center of Infoca, Alejandro García, a "turning point" that has forced us to review everything that was known about the extinction of forest fires, the protocols and the tools from beginning to end. We must face, he says, a new type of fires, much more uncontrollable, much more

and in the face of which a single autonomous community may not have enough weapons. A change is imposed, assures this expert.

It was at 9:35 p.m. on September 8 when smoke began to rise in Sierra Bermeja. First at one point and then at another because, at least, it started at

almost at the same time, which led specialists to suspect that it had been intentional almost from the first minute.

For six days, up to

and

planes and helicopters battled against the flames. That was the maximum number of troops who came to fight the fire on September 13, most of them belonging to the Andalusian Infoca Plan, but also with the support of specialists from the central government and other autonomous communities, such as Murcia, Madrid, Castilla La Mancha or Catalonia, in addition to members of the Military Emergency Unit (UME). An extraordinary display for an exceptional disaster that, until that moment, had not been seen in Spain, although its arrival was already feared.

In 2017 something similar was already seen in neighboring Portugal, with a destructive capacity never known in the Iberian Peninsula. It was a matter of time before something similar happened in Spain and, therefore, because they can be repeated, García advocates taking note of what happened in Malaga and preparing more and better.

Above all, the residents of towns such as Estepona -4,117.77 hectares destroyed-, Jubrique -1,177.44 hectares burned-, Genalguacil -1,043.33 hectares devastated-, Júzcar -471.45 hectares destroyed-, Faraján -285.26 hectares- or Benahavís -0.48 hectares lost-. Most of the area was also

: 7,664.69 hectares of the 8,401.61 affected. The rest is divided between pastures -631.38 hectares-, agricultural land -17.20 hectares- or urban -79.11 hectares-.

In these 40 days that have passed since the fire was controlled, Infoca has had no rest, especially the firefighters from the Malaga provincial operational center, who have continued to fight every day against a fire that was struggling to revive. The

of the terrain, steep and inaccessible in many places, was a major obstacle to control the flames and has been, also, to settle the points at which the land was

still burning.

Practically, according to number two of the Infoca Plan, the

of the perimeter of the fire

have been combed by hand

to track these hot spots. With hoes and hand tools it has been necessary to dig a good part of that perimeter because the use of heavy machinery was absolutely unfeasible in this area and, one by one, the embers have been discovered and extinguished, some hidden underground and consuming roots and peat.

And to this we must add that, after the water that fell six days after starting the fire, it has not rained again, which has not contributed to the completion of the work.

Furthermore, the absence of rain has forced the Junta de Andalucía to extend for fifteen days the

of forest fire in the entire community, which will be in force, for now, until the end of this month.

"We have to learn," insists Alejandro García, who points to the large amount of

in the mountains, the vegetation that is eating up the ground as the rural environment is abandoned, as one of the determining factors of these new fires , in addition to climate change.

"It is my personal opinion, but we have to professionalize

ourselves

and we must reach a

because no community has the capacity to manage these megafires," explains this expert who, in 30 years of experience, says that he has never seen anything like Sierra Bermeja.

The day after

For her part, the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Sustainable Development, Carmen Crespo, told EL MUNDO that the priority objective of the Andalusian Government is now the

environmental and socioeconomic

of the affected area.

The emergency actions have a budget of

and are focused on reducing water erosion due to the loss of vegetation cover, removing burned branches and trees that may pose a danger, repairing roads or protecting endangered species. The works will be divided into lots to expedite them and will be carried out by forestry companies to generate wealth in the region itself. After the emergency works, the emergency works and later medium and long-term actions will be launched. "We are going to heal the wounds left by the fire in Sierra Bermeja," insisted Crespo.

On the other hand, the Andalusian Government has set up a

that will be in charge of preparing the environmental restoration plan.

The intention is to define, from a technical, scientific and social point of view, what type of actions to carry out to restore and begin to recover the area.

"Later on we will be able to propose what native vegetation we are going to select, with what density and in which areas it will be necessary to reforest to mitigate the effects of climate change and help prevent forest fires," explained the counselor.

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