The president of the PP and candidate for the presidency of the Government, Alberto Núñez Feijóohas advocated this Tuesday for installing a permanent base of helicopters fire or seaplanesbecause the islands cannot afford the “delay” caused by air means coming from the peninsula.
“We must seriously study the possibility of a base that could be operational every month of the year, during the time of maximum fire riskbecause when a large fire occurs, that period of delay of an aircraft, contrary to putting out the fire, what it does is facilitate the fire to continue spreading,” he said in statements to the media from one of the areas affected by the last big fire in Tenerife.
Feijóo said that “Spain has money to face this, if it saves,” for example, “in bureaucratic spending, in political spending and in unnecessary spending.” “The faster the action, the more control we will have of the fire, the less damage will be caused and therefore the fewer secondary effects in large fires like the one we have unfortunately seen here a few weeks ago,” he stated.
Thus, he defended that this permanent base, “whether for helicopters or seaplanes” should be an expense “financed by the State administration in the Canary Islands.”
“The movement of aircraft from the peninsula to here takes many hours and many times they arrive at night hours where they can no longer operate. And the first day where a large fire occurs is the key so that the fire does not continue to spread,” he maintained.
SHIFTING THE DEBATE TOWARDS SOLVING PEOPLE’S PROBLEMS
Therefore, he said that it is time to “introduce that into the national debate” especially at a time when “we are lost talking about things that do not have a direct impact on the people and our heritage or the environment.”
“We spend a lot of time and energy discussing issues and we spend very little time solving the problems of the people and the environment in Spain,” he stated.
Feijóo stressed that “unfortunately” the one in Tenerife is “to date it is the largest fire that Spain has had in this season of 2023” and that the forest fires “are not going to get less but unfortunately they will get more as a consequence.” of climate change, the abandonment of rural areas, the concentration of the population in urban areas and poor management of the forest.
