«Congratulations for the great work. We owe you a debt of gratitude because They have put their lives in danger in the very hard fight against the fire». The acting Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, thanked the members of the Military Emergency Unit (UME) and in general to all the participants in the firefighting operation for their work to stop the flames and ensure that there were no injuries or burned homes. He did so this Thursday morning during a visit to Tenerife in which Robles flew over the Tenerife Forest Crown in a military helicopter to observe the serious damage of this disaster.
Margarita Robles called the fire “terrible” after observing the more than 14,000 hectares of forest affected and recalled that the members of the Canarian UME are mostly islanders, “some even with houses in areas threatened by fire”, which was “a drama” that was added to “the complex task of facing a fire voracious”. During a tour in which she did not stop asking questions to the UME staff, the Minister of Defense was accompanied by one of the main commanders of the Spanish Armed Forces, the chief of the Army Staff, General Amador Enseñat, as well as as by the head of the Command of Canary IslandsLieutenant General Julio Salom.
Margarita Robles received the explanations, among others, from Francisco Javier Marcos Izquierdo. This major general of the Army took office last Tuesday, August 15, as head of the UME and just a few hours later he was already mobilized with the units in the Canary Islands when the fire in Tenerife. “It was arriving and encountering this challenge,” he told the media, adding: “I am very surprised with the level of professionalism and dedication of these men and women from the UME, who did a great job.”
Another of the commanders who provided information to the minister about the operation was Captain Rafael San José, from the Natural Emergencies Intervention Company. He led on the ground the defense of the Astrophysical and Atmospheric observatories of the National Park of the Teidewho miraculously suffered no damage, along with the forest firefighting teams of the Eirif del Government of the Canary Islands and the Brifor of the Cabildo of Tenerife. «There were many complications because both scientific infrastructures are at the top, between the north and south slopes, and the winds were changeable. Despite being low scrub, the flames reached 7-8 meters. The flames crossed the facilities but did not cause damage for very few meters,” said the captain.
One of the movements carried out by the UME, Rafael San José detailed, was the placement of a portable swimming pool with a capacity for 12,000 liters of water in the old facilities of a detachment of the 22nd Transmission Regiment, in Izaña, very close to the two observatories. of Teide. It was precisely there where the helicopter landed in which Margarita Robles and the military commanders observed the devastation caused by the flames from the air. The pool, which was supplied with water from a well located in this former military compound, allowed the helicopters to reduce loading times and carry out a more effective task against the fire..
Subsequently, Minister Robles moved to the Los Rodeos barracks, which supported the UME and the civil authorities during the fire. There she was received by the head of the XVI Canary Brigade, Brigadier General Ricardo Esteban, and other military commanders. Already in the barracks, General Salom, head of the Canary Islands Command, thanked the minister for the visit and stressed that “our personnel are our main asset.” In Los Rodeos, just above the Tenerife North airport, the Field Artillery Regiment No. 93, a maneuver helicopter battalion (Bhelma VI) and a detachment within the Natural Emergencies Intervention Unit (UIEM Canarias) are located.
