The Valencian Community’s Official Gazette has published an order granting the local councils’ requests for fire prevention and forest management subsidies for this year. The PSOE claims that Orihuela’s exclusion stems from its failure to make timely payments to the Regional and State Tax Agency.
“Once again we have to see how this government is incapable of solving the problems,” stressed the socialist councillor Luis Quesada, who added that “it is very easy to accuse and open files on civil servants to cover up the clumsiness with which they govern and, above all, to try to give the image that it is always someone else’s fault” in reference to the fact that the City Council held the treasurer, who did not sign the general account that is sent to the Sindicatu
Therefore, “the problem is not the civil servants or those authorised, but Orihuela is getting worse every day due to the disastrous management of the PP and Vox coalition,” the councillor stated. He also pointed out that “it is unacceptable that the government continues to risk and lose subsidies for not being up to date with payments to the Treasury.”
In this regard, he indicated that the number of subsidies and grants that have been put at risk or lost outright due to “not being able to fulfil the commitments made” has already occurred.
He remembered the Calvo Sotelo promenade project, where over 400,000 euros were lost, which the City Council will now pay, and when “the mayor [Pepe Vegara] lied, assuring them that no aid had been lost, and it was shown that we had not been able to ask for aid for the same reason that they leave us without it today.”
He wanted the mayor, who oversees the Treasury, to explain: “Enough of the silence this government has accustomed us to when they make mistakes due to their lack of management and attention to these issues.” “Will you tell us how much we’ve lost? What message are we sending to the residents of the Coast, where fires are raging? Is this aid not necessary? Are they going to carry out the actions that were meant to be sponsored with this aid using their funds?” he enquired.
Fire on the coast
In the middle of the month, a fire broke out on Las Ramblas de Oleza Avenue, destroying 3 hectares and affecting five homes.
The rapid progress of the fire sparked an alert, prompting the mobilisation of a large emergency response team. The fire began in a wooded area and spread violently through the dry vegetation, reaching residences. The incident resulted in the activation of Level 1 of the Special Plan for Forest Fires due to its proximity to multiple residential areas. In fact, the fire prompted the evacuation of 50 residents in the Loira neighbourhood.
Two aircraft and a significant ground operation were sent, including firefighters from Torrevieja and Almoradí fire stations, four forest firefighting units, Civil Protection, Orihuela Emergency Services, and local police. Despite this, it took five hours to bring the fire under control.
Concern spread to many parts of the coast, where residents raised the alarm over the “neglect,” “abandonment,” and “lack of maintenance and prevention” in some areas where weeds and dryness are accumulating, and with rising temperatures just around the corner, they once again called for the Ramblas, gardens, and streets to be cleaned immediately.
Also last year
The fire broke out near where another one started in June of last year, next to the Tajo-Segura water transfer canal, between the Las Ramblas Golf area and Campoamor. On that occasion, the flames remained 150 metres from the homes, 15 metres from the gas tank that supplies a residential area and only 30 metres from the nearest hole on the golf course, which opened its sprinklers to the fullest to act as a firebreak against the ferocity of the fire, which remained at the edge of the lawn.
The fire, which was reactivated once under control, burnt 10 hectares of developable land in PAU 5, a sector proposed for declassification in the Vega Baja Territorial Action Plan (PAT) by the previous Consell.
“The fire could lead to construction in this area, which was de facto forested,” warned Miguel Ángel Pavón, president of Friends of the Sierra Escalona (ASE). However, he also explained that it is developable land, not forest land, despite the pine forest and Mediterranean scrub vegetation that burnt. In this way, Pavón added that it is not covered by state and Valencian Community forest laws, which say that land that has been forested and affected by a fire cannot be changed to urban or developable land, and the protections for its forest use cannot be lessened for 30 years after the fire is put out.
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