Residents evacuated over coast wildfire
Blaze broke out at cove between Moraira and Benitachell’s Cumbre del Sol during the intense heat of Saturday - while another fire struck in Jávea on Tuesday
AN INFERNO close to several urbanisations forced emergency services to evacuate 120 residents in TeuladaMoraira on Saturday.
At least 100 firefighters, together with a plane and a helicopter, were deployed to the site, but the aircraft had to withdraw at nightfall.
Ground workers spent the whole night tackling the blaze at Cala Llebeig, close to the Benitachell border.
After the alarm had been raised in the afternoon, the next three hours were crucial as the emergency response unit battled to keep the blaze from spreading to nearby homes, before nightfall would force pilots to pull out.
Worried residents, mostly European expatriates, spent the night in the sports centre where beds were made up as a precaution.
But nobody was hurt, and fire brigade efforts prevented any damage to homes.
The flames were mostly extinguished by around 09.00 on Sunday morning, although the brigade remained in the area, drenching the terrain in order to prevent a flare-up.
From about 11.00, evacuated residents were able to start returning home, with the last of them reportedly allowed back in their villas by around 14.00.
The inferno wiped out over 18 hectares of countryside on the clifftop bay – and, in the aftermath, charred wrecks of dumped cars were uncovered after years of languishing in ditches.
Until now, they had been concealed by vegetation and trees that were subsequently destroyed by the flames.
A fire brigade spokesman reported that the fire was deemed to be completely extinguished at 10.40 on Monday morning.
As yet, the cause of the blaze is not clear, but unusually-high temperatures combined with a complete lack of rainfall means the risk of forest fires has started early this year.
Locals tackle Jávea fire with hoses
Residents used garden hoses and buckets to put out a blaze that broke out in a pine forest in Jávea on Tuesday, managing to stop it from spreading before the fire brigade arrived.
Local police were first on the scene, and joined the neighbourhood in filling buckets from outside taps.
As well as being close to their houses, the flames threatened the hilltop hermitage chapel and the stations of the cross, where solemn parades for the Jesús Nazareno patron saint fiestas were due to take place the following day.
The community's actions were crucial in stopping the fire from spreading and avoiding the need to evacuate any of the homes clustered near the chapel.
They worked non-stop
from the moment the inferno flared up at 15.30 through to around 16.15 when it was extinguished, successfully containing it until the emergency response team reached the scene.
Afterwards, many of them said the wildfire had been ‘inevitable’ due to extremely dry conditions and a thick carpet of pine needles that ‘only needed a small spark’ to ignite.