Fortunately, it was much more spectacular than tragic. The fire that occurred yesterday afternoon in the Hermano Pedro ravine, between San Isidro and El Médano, at the facilities of Desguaces Insulares SL, resulted in a 52-year-old company worker assisted by smoke poisoning and tachycardia, and three firefighters affected by smoke inhalation, as well as considerable material losses for scrapping, whose owner lamented, almost in full anxiety attack, that in 30 years of professional experience nothing like this had ever happened to her. The rapid intervention of firefighters from all over the Island served to control the fire after three hours, although two checkpoints were still in the area last night to ensure that any small explosion did not reactivate it, given the potential arsenal that could remain unburned.
The fire occurred shortly before four in the afternoon, closing time for the public of the first scrapping company in Tenerife. It was the workers themselves who notified the 1-1-2, which transferred the alarm to the Firefighters Consortium, in charge of deploying professional personnel and volunteers from parks throughout the island in less than half an hour, while the Local Police of Granadilla and the Civil Guard cordoned off the area to prevent the transit of onlookers, without having to cut off the El Médano highway or the Autopista del Sur (TF-1). The latter for a moment was thought of closing, due to the density of the black smoke, which, as the afternoon passed, rose like a vertical column to disappear over the midlands of Granadilla, so there was no effect on the flights of entry and exit of the South Airport.
Some thirty personnel from the San Miguel, Santa Cruz, Adeje and Guía de Isora fire stations participated in the extinction tasks, with the support of six heavy urban pumps, a ladder truck, two command and control units, a personnel and cargo, three mother pumps, two from Sermugran and one from the airport, and a GES helicopter for reconnaissance and perimeter work, as well as an ambulance from the Canary Islands Emergency Service.
Oil tank
As detailed by the Fire Department, most of the vehicles stored in these facilities, located on the Camino del Hermano Pedro, were not decontaminated, which is why there were explosions of batteries, tires and fuel tanks. According to Marcos González, first deputy mayor of Granadilla de Abona, the “fire occurred in a tank where the oils of the vehicles that have just arrived at the scrapyard are stored”, although the exact origin of the fire will not be known until the results of the tests are known. analysis that Civil Guard agents began to carry out yesterday.
As a precautionary measure, the Cabildo de Tenerife yesterday afternoon launched a recommendation through social networks so that the people who were at that time in the area affected by the column of black smoke should withdraw or remain confined inside their homes. homes, especially those in the populous neighborhood of San Isidro, just over a kilometer from the vehicle scrapyard.
Ruben Fernandez
Rubén Fernández, island director of Security and president of the Tenerife Firefighters Consortium, acknowledged that, when he arrived in the area, “the fire was quite ugly, but the worst is over, thanks to the little wind that there has been and the rapid intervention , although we will be watching the area all night, because there is a lot of fuel here that can burn”, he commented two hours after the spectacular fire started in the car scrapyard, boxed in a ravine attached to Camino Hermano Pedro. Precisely, the fact of being inside the ravine “has prevented the fire from spreading through greenhouses or nearby homes,” said Fernández.
In addition, he indicated that “the scrapping is enormous, but only the northern part is affected, by pulling the fire upwards and not towards the coast, which, in addition, has made it easier for flights from the South Airport not to be affected.” Similarly, there was no need to cut roads, despite the spectacular column of black smoke “produced by burning tires and vehicle seat textiles,” said the director of Security of the Cabildo de Tenerife, recently arrived from the island. of La Palma, where he was second in charge of Pevolca.
go to the polygon
Desguaces Insulares SL is a company with 31 years of history, after starting in 1991 in Icod de los Vinos and later expanding its business to La Laguna (1993), and 15 years ago (2007), it moved to Camino Hermano Pedro, where it has its largest facility, with a license that theoretically expired in 2020, due to the requirements of the Cabildo, although with an extension to relocate to some warehouses in the Granadilla Industrial Estate, a transfer that now, after this serious incident, should be imminent, as he acknowledged the first deputy mayor of Granadilla, Marcos González: “I know that the owner has been working on the transfer to the Polígono for some time.”
