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Date Published: 18/07/2022

ARCHIVED - Costa del Sol resort battles wildfire: forest fire burns in Mijas, Malaga

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The last of the 2,000 homes to be evacuated can return to their houses, but the fire is still not out after four days

<span style='color:#780948'>ARCHIVED</span> - Costa del Sol resort battles wildfire: forest fire burns in Mijas, Malaga

A forest fire in the Sierra de Mijas countryside between Fuengirola, Torremolinos and Alhaurín el Grande in Malaga has finally been stabilised after burning for three days, but as of the fourth day has not been fully extinguished.

At 7.30pm on Sunday July 17, the emergency level was lowered to zero, but the fire, which started last Friday at 12.30pm, is still burning and not officially “under control”.

In fact, forest firefighters in Spain expect the fire to reactivate and flare up due to the high temperatures, but the perimeter has been sealed and there is no longer any danger to homes in the local area.

That means the residents of the 650 houses that had to be evacuated in Puerto Pescadores and El Chorro in Alhaurín el Grande and in Pinos de Alhaurín in Alhaurín de la Torre can now return to their homes.

Firefighters in Spain classify a forest fire to be under control “when it is completely perimetered,” explained Alejandro Molina, deputy director of the Infoca Provincial Operations Centre, “and for that there is still a lot of work to be done” in Mijas.

“There are still many hot spots. We are not ruling out any reactivation within the perimeter, so we ask locals not to be alarmed if they see new smoke and flames,” he said, while lamenting that weather conditions that have made the task of extinguishing the fire more difficult. “The weather situation is not helping us at all with a high temperature and a relative humidity of 26%.”

Video footage captured on the beach in Fuengirola showed a firefighting plane swooping down to scoop up sea water to be used on the Mijas forest fire, with bemused onlookers on the beach warned to stay out of the water and “collaborate”.

📣MUY IMPORTANTE
Precaución ⚠️
Playas de Fuengirola.
Medios aéreos anfibios del #43Grupo en tareas de carga de agua para extinción del #IFMijas
- ALÉJESE de ellos
- NO NAVEGUE
- EVITEN su trayectoria.
SU COLABORACIÓN ES ESENCIAL
pic.twitter.com/LZkgo4Po1E
— El Batefuegos (@El_Batefuegos) July 17, 2022

So far, the fire has burned through a total of 2,070 hectares in the municipalities of Mijas, Alhaurín el Grande and Alhaurín de la Torre, mostly of forest land, and it is expected to take several more days for the fire to be considered extinguished.

At this moment, fire crews suspect that the fire was caused by human intervention, and not by natural causes.

Meanwhile, there are forest fires elsewhere in Spain, including in Catalonia, Castilla-León, Galicia and Extremadura, as well as in Portugal and France.

Just a month ago, during the last heatwave, a forest fire tore through Pujerra and Benehavís, near Marbella in Malaga, and the local community has yet to fully recover.

Spain’s deputy interior minister, Antonio Sanz, has been at the site of the fire extinction HQ in Mijas and noted that, in total, 2,200 homes were evacuated and there have been no injuries or deaths.

“There has not been a single incident and no one has been injured, despite the hurry and problems involved in an evacuation,” he said. “I want to thank the citizens for their responsibility because it is not easy to go door to door in the early hours of the morning with the security forces with loudspeakers warning of the danger of staying in their houses, and the citizens have reacted with an exceptional dose of responsibility.

“We have a mature and committed society.”

Image: Juanma Moreno / Twitter

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