The president of the Cabildo de Tenerife, Pedro Martín, has visited the areas affected by the fire last summer in the municipalities of Los Realejos, San Juan de la Rambla, La Guancha and Icod, and in which the Cabildo invests more than 4,441,000 euros in emergency work that has already begun for the recovery of the slopes and actions on the channels. “The Island Corporation has launched a battery of actions in which more than 10 local companies participate and in which 112 people work, carrying out a first intervention on 40 hectares of the more than 2,700 affected by the fire,” explained Pedro Martín.
“Shortly after the last summer fire, we have begun to work on the work to recover the tracks that lead to the fire areas, improve the firebreaks and repopulate with new vegetation that is more resistant to fires, in addition to the installation of dynamic barriers of protection”, added the insular president.
Pedro Martín indicated that “we can already verify the works that are being carried out, which will continue until the middle of next year, and that throughout 2023 they will improve all the space that burned at the time, 2,700 hectares, for an area repopulated and with new vitality”. Some of these areas “are impassable by the work teams due to the orography, which is why other systems will be implemented, such as the dispersal of seeds through drones,” he added.
In this sense, the president, together with the counselor of the Natural Environment and Security Management Area, Isabel García, and her technical team, and several of the councilors of the municipality of Los Realejos, such as Domingo García, Benito Dévora and Miguel Agustín González , toured some of the 10 hectares, out of the 12.85 of sector 4, in which the work teams carry out pruning and chipping of burned elements, generation of clean and clear fajinadas and other forestry actions, with the objective to prepare them for the reinforcement of slopes and actions against runoff in the event of rain.
In addition to this sector 4, work is being done as a priority in another seven, which together add up to a surface area of 195 hectares.
“The Cabildo has reacted urgently to the serious problem that the fire caused once it was extinguished,” said the councilor Isabel García, who added that “the complicated orography threatened the safety of people and, therefore, we have launched a battery of actions that are already bearing fruit, although it is a long job and that will take several years, due to the extent of the burnt mountain.
drones
Regarding reforestation, the technicians explained to the president that, due to the inclination of the terrain on the Tigaiga hillside, it is impossible to plant species manually, so drones will be used to spread seeds of species typical of monteverde .
On the other hand, and in the perimeter of the fire, the Cabildo is working on the recovery of more than 40 kilometers of three forest roads, which, due to the passage of firefighting vehicles, were affected. To do this, a machine is being used that uses the track’s own bearing material, crushing stones up to 30 centimeters in diameter and reusing them to generate a new pavement.
