“The situation is unprecedented. It’s a perfect storm. It’s being catastrophic.” With these words, Isabel Díaz Ayuso has defined the state of the southeast of Madrid, ravaged by what is already the worst fire in the region’s history after the three outbreaks detected in the area have merged into a single front on the border between the Community of Madrid and Castilla y León.
“The wind doesn’t help and temperatures are unbearable, it’s something never seen before,” explained the regional president, who asserted that the fire “is advancing at great speed” and has already destroyed 6,000 hectares in an area of “high concentration of homes.”
More than 19,000 people have been evacuated or confined, four municipalities are completely evacuated, and a hundred people have been treated for smoke inhalation and anxiety attacks. A magnitude that justifies, in Ayuso’s eyes, the request for emergency level 3, by which command passes to the Ministry of Interior, despite the criticism received in recent hours, even from members of the central government, regarding the action protocol.
“Let’s get to work and stop with the nonsense. Let’s go save lives,” demanded Ayuso, who stressed that coordination is being “good and necessary” despite there being “idiots” who “stir up the atmosphere.” “That’s on them,” concluded the Madrid leader.
“We cannot be optimistic, conditions today are very adverse, tomorrow they improve slightly, but we are putting all resources,” said the Minister of Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, this Friday morning, regarding the evolution of the three fires that are devastating part of Ávila and are out of control in Madrid, which has forced the Madrid community to ask the central government to take over the emergency, as has finally happened.
Marlaska, in a message with dramatic overtones and with the three fires currently out of control, after emergency level 3 was declared for a fire for the first time in history, explained that this Friday is a “critical day” for the evolution of the fires, which have already forced the evacuation of 10,000 people, and that the objective is “to prevent the three fires from converging”. That is, from joining. According to experts, apart from the weather conditions, the fires are already beginning, as often happens in these climatic events, to ‘create’ their own climate around them.
Marlaska, questioned by journalists, also stated that coordination with the Community of Madrid, of a different political color than the central government, is being “perfect, absolute and of total loyalty, as it should be”, and did not want to comment on the statements of his own Government delegate in Madrid, Francisco Martín, who after Sol’s request on Thursday afternoon for Moncloa to take over the management of the emergency declared that Madrid should explain if the request was due to “technical incapacity, operational incapacity or because it understands that the evolution of the emergency will not be able to be controlled by the Community.”
“Coordination is absolute and the central government does not argue,” said the minister.
Furthermore, he said there is no horizon for the displaced to return to their homes – “when feasible” -, confirmed that the origin of one of the fires was the sudden ignition of “a car”, and pointed to the underlying reason that has made these fires unmanageable, for which Spain has already asked Europe for help: “Climate change is leading to very difficult fires to attack, but we are putting all resources into it, and we also have national and European aid mechanisms,” Marlaska said at the scene of the extinction efforts, from one of the advanced command posts, in Cenicientos (Madrid).
After a night of some institutional tension, all political leaders deployed on the ground now agree that collaboration between administrations is proving “fundamental,” especially in the most critical hours of the fire, which are expected to arrive this Friday afternoon.
The Madrid Minister of Environment, Carlos Novillo, has described the situation as uncontrollable at the moment. “Conditions will be more favorable tonight or tomorrow,” he said, referring to an expected drop in temperatures in the area and, above all, a decrease in wind gusts that are fueling the flames.
Concern is evident among the Community’s senior officials, especially after the two fires detected in southeastern Madrid have compacted into a single front in recent hours, which increases their virulence. The fear at the moment, Novillo pointed out, is that the Burgohondo fire, still far from this area, will advance rapidly and act as a “motor” that further accelerates the fire near the San Juan reservoir.
“We ask for patience and trust. Very tough hours are coming,” acknowledged the Madrid minister, who stressed the need for wind gusts, currently reaching 60 kilometers per hour, to decrease in order to stop the fire’s advance. “The priority is to save lives,” he said, which is why an ES-Alert message was sent again with the aim of informing which municipalities along the A-5 axis have reception capacity for the more than 9,000 evacuees in recent hours.
