“We have spent almost 14,000 euros out of budget in the last big fire and now we need financial reinforcement to cover expenses until the Consortium subsidy arrives,” he emphasizes. César Álvarez, president of the Volunteer Firefighters of Adeje.
To do this, they have started, through the page gofundme, a social media campaign to receive donations. “We are not in a drastic situation, but we need at least 6,000 euros because we must replace material and have financial resources until May, when the 94,000 euros that the Cabildo Firefighters Consortium grants us usually arrive.”
This expenditure of 14,000 euros has been due to the enormous work carried out on the fire that began in Arafo on August 15 and spread for a week through 12 municipalities on the Island. “We have used a lot of diesel, tires, nozzles and we broke down a truck,” says César Álvarez, the president of a group that has 42 members, of them 32 active, in its 38 years of history. Their economic resources, apart from the subsidy from the Cabildo, are generated from another subsidy from the Adeje City Council, their main supporter, and from the income they obtain from different firefighting courses in hotels or seaports, apart from the donations they receive. throughout the year.
César Álvarez does not believe that it is a problem that the Cabildo, in the evaluation of damage caused by the fire, can integrate the expenses incurred by the Volunteer Firefighters of Adeje and other municipalities, but “that will be through the Consortium and may take time.” he claimed. “We don’t want to cause alarm, but we need that money because otherwise we won’t be able to justify the subsidy at the end of the year and they could withdraw it. We just want to anticipate what may happen,” he says.
Meeting
Last week, the Federation of Tenerife Volunteer Firefighters, which brings together the eight parks on the island, met at the facilities of the Adeje Volunteer Firefighters, where they held a briefing (an information session) on the recent forest fire that devastated the Island of Tenerife.
The Federation of Volunteer Firefighters of Tenerife contributed, throughout the days that were required by the Insular Consortium, a total of 608 personnel to the extinction work, where they used 33 vehicles of different types, as well as various material for the extinction of forest fires.
