The Diputación de Málaga will invest 3.1 million euros in repairing two roads in the Serranía de Ronda that were affected by the Sierra Bermeja fire last year. Action will be taken on a 20-kilometre section of the MA-8301 (Estepona-Jubrique) and on nine kilometers of the MA-8302 (access to Genalguacil from the Peñas Blancas port). The bulk of the actions -which are located in the municipalities of Estepona, Genalguacil and Jubrique- focus on the replacement of safety barriers, the stabilization of slopes, the construction of new retaining walls and the reinforcements in the pavement of route.
The president of the Diputación de Málaga, Francisco Salado, explained that in October of last year emergency works were already carried out on the two highways, essential to be able to restore road safety conditions and to restore roads. In these works, the Diputación invested almost 650,000 euros.
To this are now added other repair works on the two roads. On the one hand, it is in the bidding period (until October 24), for an amount of 2,182,465.03 euros, the repair of the damage caused to the MA-8301 road, specifically in a section between the kilometer points 7+800 and 27+500.
And, on the other hand, the Governing Board of the Diputación de Málaga gave the green light at its meeting this week to the project to repair the damage to the MA-8302 road (access to Genalguacil from the Peñas Blancas port) in the nine first few kilometers of the road. The budget for this work is 948,270.66 euros and it was also approved to declare the urgency in processing the file for the award of the work contract.
Salado recalled the Provincial Council’s commitment to the people, companies and infrastructure affected by the fire from the outset, and highlighted that nine million euros have been allocated to recover and repair the damage, to prevent new fires and to improve the capacity to respond to this type of catastrophe, in addition to helping the business fabric.
For example, 4.6 million euros for the improvement of highways and roads that affect municipalities such as Casares, Faraján, Genalguacil, Júzcar, Estepona or Jubrique; 1.9 million for the repair and adaptation of the water infrastructures in Júzcar, Faraján, Genalguacil, Jubrique and Casares; 1.4 million to build new water intakes for fire trucks in the 15 municipalities of the Genal Valley and more than half a million euros have been granted in aid and subsidies to farmers, ranchers, forestry operations and trade, restoration and rural tourism in the municipalities affected by the fire (Genalguacil, Jubrique, Faraján, Júzcar, Pujerra, Benahavís and Casares).
Works on both highways
The works that will be carried out on the two highways consist of milling and reinforcing the pavement of sections affected by the flames and subsequent horizontal marking, stabilizing slopes, building retaining and support walls as a result of the runoff produced and the restoration of the containment systems that have lost their anticorrosive protection.
Precisely, the containment systems were one of the elements most affected by the fire, given that as they are mountain roads with significant slopes, they are present throughout the route on at least one of its margins. The direct impact of the fire on the safety barriers and the high temperatures to which they were subjected caused, on the one hand, the loss of the anticorrosive protection (galvanized) and, on the other hand, their excessive expansion, which Being a continuous element, screwed, it has yielded at some points, moving the anchor posts to the ground and causing curvatures in the profile of the barrier, reducing the level of containment.
In this sense, the complete restitution of all the barriers affected by the fire is contemplated, which includes the dismantling of the existing burned barriers and the assembly of new metal safety barriers, lowerings and barriers with a protection system for motorists in those sections. where they had been implanted.