The Environmental Prosecutor’s Office of Malaga has filed a complaint this Thursday in the courts of Ronda for the fire that occurred a few weeks ago in Sierra Bermeja, which affected several municipalities of the Genal Valley, razed almost 10,000 hectares of land, and in whose extinction tasks a forest firefighter died.
The complaint has been filed before the Investigating Court number 3 of Ronda. In it, according to judicial sources, it is stated that it is a life-threatening fire, which is punished in the Penal Code with a penalty of up to 20 years in prison.
In addition, the public prosecutor has requested the declaration of secrecy of the proceedings that, according to the sources, it has been agreed, in order to avoid any leak “that could frustrate the successful conclusion of the investigation by the team of the Nature Protection Service (Seprona) of the Civil Guard of Malaga.”
The Environmental Prosecutor’s Office already announced last week that according to the first data of the investigation, the fire had been intentionally started, although it was early to have information on authorship.
The fire was declared on September 8 and was considered controlled on Tuesday the 14th. The provisional assessment of the fire is that they have burned 9,640 hectares54 agricultural and livestock farms have been affected; the agricultural and livestock area with damage is around 160 hectares, 90 percent chestnut trees; and 110 kilometers of river beds and streams have been affected.
The State Attorney General’s Office already indicated in a statement that the information that the investigators had transmitted to it was the detection of “Several initial outbreaks” of the fire, “originated practically simultaneously and close to two points on a road little trafficked, with the possibility of parking vehicles ».
For this reason, the Prosecutor’s Office already indicated that these elements “may point to an intentional etiology”, although it specified that there was not “sufficient data on the possible authorship” of the fire, in which extinction tasks a forest firefighter lost his life and two others were injured.
The public prosecutor specified that it is an area “of great environmental wealth«, Affecting at that time up to three protected natural spaces –ZEC of the Sierra Bermeja and Real, the ZEC of the Genal River Valley and the Natural Park of Los Reales de Sierra Bermeja–, also causing the eviction of a large number of citizens of various populations.