The counselor of the Presidency of the Junta de Andalucía, Elijah Bendodo, reported this morning that the fire conditions have improved significantly during the last night, since “it has allowed us to work and we have been able to enter.”
The fire is still active in four fronts, although one of them, the southeast that affects the municipalities of Benahavís and Estepona, is already stabilized and this has allowed 1,400 evicted people to return to their homes. So far it has burned 7,780 hectares, and 1,600 people are still evicted.
Most of the evacuees are in Ronda, where 80 people have spent the night in the sports hall. The rest have been accommodated in hotels that have offered their facilities, said the counselor.
At north front “We have been able to work and act with technical fire,” according to the Regional Coordinator of INFOCA, Juan Sánchez, after the fire “has given us a truce.”
The priority now is southwest front, the one that advances towards Casares, which is the most active and where all the heavy media of INFOCA are concentrated. However, for the moment there is no danger to the population and no further evictions are planned, although “in a fire of these characteristics, anything can happen.”
Sánchez has stated that the eastern area remains to be sealed and that INFOCA will try to stabilize various parts of the fire before tonight.
Weather forecasts announce rain, something that “will help improve conditions, but will not put out the fire because the amount of water that we expect will not reach the ground in the front of flames,” said the INFOCA coordinator.
Lack of water
Something that is beginning to be a problem is the lack of water. «We are ending the water rafts in the field, and the aerial means queue up ». For this reason, Juan Sánchez considers that «more media could cause logistics problem, both at the aerodromes and on the ground ”.
According to the Minister of the Presidency, there are currently 51 air means acting in different areas of the fire. Elías Bendodo has valued the solidarity of other territories in our country, something also “unprecedented” in Spain. In addition to the Andalusians, media from Madrid, Castilla La Mancha, Murcia and Extremadura.