The head of the second emergency intervention battalion of the Military Emergency Unit (UME), Lieutenant Colonel José Alberto Gallego, indicated this Thursday that in the Tenerife fire “everything came together” against it.
Gallego recalled, during a visit by the Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, to the Izaña military detachment, that the orography of the island and the behavior of the wind, which was “very violent”, were the main enemies of the extinction services. .
But in addition, in the two weeks prior to the fire, “very hot winds” blew in the Canary Islands, drying out the forest mass, which “was very available” and “burned very quickly.”
This, together with the low humidity of those days, with percentages of 12% on the summits, “very low for the area”, due to the fact that the trade winds were not blowing, formed a cluster of adverse circumstances that explain the violence of the fire in its first stages. days.
“It all added up,” insisted Lieutenant Colonel Gallego, who has described that the winds during the fire behaved in a “wandering” way, with a “local” character in each ravine and very variable: at night they were descending and during the day , ascending.
Added to this difficulty in containing the fire was the arrival of the fire to the summit, because when that happens, “it gets out of control, because two different fires are started,” one on each slope.
The head of the second emergency intervention battalion of the UME has emphasized that one of the greatest “learnings” after this fire has been the coordination between all the troops.
“All levels, local, insular, regional and state, have worked in perfect harmony,” he stated, and valued the previous training work carried out together.
The head of the tactical group that operated in the Izaña area, Rafael San José, stressed that until the seventh, eighth day of the fire, the UME was working “at full capacity with a fairly active front and that demanded the maximum of us.”
The head of the UME, Major General Francisco Javier Marcos, has said that he had barely been in office for three hours, for which he had been appointed fifteen days before, when they received the order to act in the Tenerife fire, and when analyzing The situation doubled the presence of the unit’s troops.
In view of the results, he said that it was “a correct decision to avoid greater evils.”
The Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, thanked the work carried out by the UME, in coordination with the rest of the teams to extinguish a “very difficult, very complicated” fire, in which we have gained many experiences for the future.”
Robles has emphasized that when a fire occurs, “in addition to the lives of people, the populations that are at risk and their properties, we must also take into account the risk assumed by the people who work to extinguish it.” .
He has also assessed that the members of the UME who have worked on the Tenerife fire “are Canaries”, due to the fact that “they know the terrain”, and some of them or their relatives “had their homes in areas very close to the fire.” ”, so there is “a human drama” that adds to his professionalism.
The minister has also praised “the great work” of the Government of the Canary Islands and the Cabildo, which shows that “when there is a tragedy of this type we are all united, there are no political colors.”
Asked about the Tenerife Cabildo’s request for a permanent seaplane base in the Canary Islands, the Minister of Defense highlighted “the pride and satisfaction that the Cabildo, like the entire Canarian population, values the role of the UME and the 43 Group ”.
“From there we are always improving, trying to do things better (…) May the Canary Islands feel very proud of these UME staff that they have and the work that is done,” he concluded.
During her visit to Tenerife, the minister was accompanied by the Chief of the Army Staff, Amador Enseñat; and by the lieutenant general chief of command of the Canary Islands, Julio Salón Herrera.
