Karl Smallman
A FOREST fire blazed in the village of Sierra de la Tejeda near the town of Competa in Malaga province.
Homes were evacuated in the Las Colmenillas urbanisation as 17 aircraft and more than 100 firefighters tackled the blaze in the rugged area.
The 112 emergency services reported that the fire started at around 13.15 and members of Infoca, the fire brigade, Guardia Civil, national and local police attended.
There were no reports of injuries.
Updates:
16:33 – Emergency services warn more evacuations may be necessary
17:00 – Level 1 Emergency Plan for Forest Fires declared
17:14 – Seaplanes are collecting water from Lake Viñuela to fight the blaze
18:00 – President of the Diputacion de Malaga witnesses the fire fighting efforts
21:00 – Fire declared as ‘stabilised’, although emergency crews are still working to cool the area
21:26 – Aircraft have now left the area but will return tomorrow if needed
Another fire on the campo, too often now to be accidental? Bob.
We have been watching this all day from Canillas de Albaida and can only applaud the bravery of the helicopter crews and bomberos who have been trying to tackle this fire all day.
Please can I have updates. I am in the um and thinking of friends, thanks mim
My parents live on the Monte. They’ve been evacuated and are having to stay in hotel overnight.
I’ve a house by the Pavo real and Competa is my village, such an awful thing to happen to such a beautiful place , I hope all my friends are safe aswell as the firefighters and all that are trying to put it out.
Only just realised there was a fire further up the mountain. Do we get any warnings to evacuate if it gets out of control and how? Seems pretty much dampened down and under control from what we can see, thanks to a team of helicopters and planes that are hovering over it and collecting more water. Still rather scary when we are from an endlessly damp Scotland
Another summer fire, watched it from sedella from the start time,Applause for the effort of everyone,tackling this awful fire.
I suspect this is again, not an accident.
What a waste of wildlife and money.
Once again a great job being done by the Bombaros Air and Ground crews and all involved.
I hate to see this kind of thing but it happens all to often in the campo. In other news a lot of the coast lost it’s water for weekend, I was out for 24 hours in Fuengirola but I believe other areas had no water for 3 days !!!!
What an amazing effort the Spanish fire crews did yesterday, they worked tirelessly into the night to protect the area. I hear it may have been caused by a firework, it was very small at around 11.am and then due to the wind spread alarmingly quickly across and up the mountain behind Competa. At 11pm the whole of the mountain was covered in small lights where we assume there were many people attending to small fires or clearing areas, our thanks go to these people for the wonderful job they did.
We own a property at the top of Cruz Del Monte and were in direct line of the fire. We watched it coming towards us from our terrace. The speed was frightening! We decided to leave at that point along with our neighbors. We returned this morning to find that our villa was intact but all around it was severely burnt and blackened.
We watched from a distance and thought that all was lost, but thanks to the fantastic efforts of the firefighters we still have our lovely villa.
There are no words to express our thanks and gratitude to them. We would also like to thank the Mayor of Competa for his help and support at this time. Lynne & Tony