Second fire on Camposol in as many months

The garden waste deposit went up in flames within weeks of another similar blaze

On Friday night, May 17, the Fire brigade and Police were called out to a large fire which had taken hold in the garden waste deposit situated at the southern end of the B Sector car park on the Camposol urbanisation. The fire was brought under control but concerns among residents continue as this is the second fire of this kind in recent weeks.

On April 19, a similar fire had to be dealt with by the fire brigade at the garden waste deposit at the bottom of Calle Esparaguerra in Sector D of the urbanisation. Ironically, it was exactly the same day that a composting contractor inspected the site and four others in order to submit a costing to clear all five sites (one on each of sectors A, B and C, and two on sector D). The contractor from Totana was in the process of agreeing with Mazarrón Council to start clearing the site for transportation to his composting plant in Totana for treatment to reduce the waste into compost and mulch, which is a legal stipulation with waste vegetation.

The waste situation has been an ongoing problem for the whole Mazarrón municipality since the municipal green waste site in Pastrana was closed down by the Murcia regional authorities in early 2023 after pressure from a local resident’s platform and national action group ACUDE. Although a second site was proposed, this is not currently available as there are no composting facilities on site and installing these would involve planning permission from the Regional authorities, including measures to prevent leachate, a situation where contaminated liquid that is generated from water percolating through a solid waste disposal sites, accumulating contaminants, moving into subsurface areas and contaminaiting ground water.

The situatation at present is that there is no facility in the Mazarrón municipality to deal with waste vegetation a predicament facing other municipalities in the region to the extent that a super processing plant is being considered in the San Javier, Los Alcázares area.

After the latest fire, the Council will be left to clear up the burnt debris from B sector car park and continue with the planned clearance of the remaining sites by the Totana contractor, which for residents of Camposol can’t come soon enough.

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