Aragon has experienced a summer marked by fires, and in just two months, around 40,000 hectares of land have been reduced to ashes. The fire prevention and extinction teams have worked day and night to placate the strong flames that have covered fields and mountains of the community, their role being essential to stop their advance towards the different population centers.
This week, these same teams have taken to the streets of Zaragoza to demand improvements in their working conditions and make clear the shortcomings they experience, and which, they say, have become more visible this summer. This is how Ricardo, one of the hundreds of firefighters who have been deployed in the territory in recent months, tells it. «This year we have found that a clearly visible lack of means, we have crews that are with three or four components, which are not operational, but which, given the circumstances, have had to be sent,» he says.
Ricardo alleges that Aragon has two million hectares of forest, «and they have to be covered with 900 people, we are one of the communities with the highest number of hectares for each forest firefighter». In addition, the lack of human resources is compounded by a lack of material resources. «The number of fire trucks is derisory,» denounces the firefighter.
During this summer’s fires, forest firefighters have also found themselves with food and rest conditions that, for Ricardo, «were not adequate». «I myself, for example, have refused to sleep and under my responsibility I have gone to base driving the car with my brigade,» he says.
As for the provisioning, the firefighter has noticed problems in the administration of food, especially in the largest fires. «In the small ones you get hold of the people and that’s it, but in the big ones, until an NGO shows up on the fourth or fifth day, we can’t depend on the village refreshments,» he says. «We are very grateful to them, but we cannot depend on the people of the town, the DGA should manage the means efficiently,» he concludes.
