The Ombudsman opens an investigation into the fire in the Sierra de la Culebra

Public complaints from professional associations about the scarcity of resources available in Castilla y León to fight fires like the one that devastated the Sierra de la Culebra (Zamora) a few weeks ago have led to an ex officio action by the Ombudsman.

The agency has requested the Ministry of the Environment of the Board, which administers the PP within the regional coalition with Vox, to detail which troops were operational that Wednesday, June 15, when flames began that ended up destroying some 25,000 hectares .

The firefighters' groups maintain that the community government had not made a sufficient deployment of means and that the declaration of the "medium" level of risk, instead of "high" - which involves a minor device - led to the catastrophe.

The body chaired by Ángel Gabilondo has requested from the Board "a general description of the personnel that make up the firefighting operation, the action protocol that is followed for the mobilization of personnel and a statement of the reasons and criteria that justify the current configuration of fire campaigns.

In this way, it seeks to know the "number and description of the troops deployed in surveillance that day and the chronology of the intervention until the fire could be considered extinguished."

The associations of professionals against fires have exposed, according to the analyzes provided by the Environment, that the intensity of the fire fronts, at the beginning, was perfectly manageable had the maximum available resources been available.

Lacking means, however,

the fire spread helped by the heat, the drought and the winds, and the reinforcements were not enough to prevent it from destroying a good part of these natural areas.

The regional resources were supported by firefighters and material from various communities, from the Military Emergency Unit and from neighboring Portugal.

The Ombudsman demands from the Ministry led by Juan Carlos Suárez-Quiñones the "references on the causes" of the fire (which point to the lightning of an electrical storm), the estimate of economic and environmental damage and the description of the measures that will be undertaken to try to solve them and prevent new fires from occurring.

The Board has promised 35 million euros for those affected, an amount that they describe as scarce: a good part of the inhabitants of that area live directly from the Sierra de la Culebra for rural tourism, agri-food production or the generation of wood.

The body also wants to know in detail what protocols mark the action in prevention and action in scenarios such as Zamora.

The government of Castilla y León has had a plan in place since 1999, much criticized by firefighters, which only considers that there is a "high" risk of fire when the fire occurs between July 1 and September 30.

The groups of firefighting operators have insisted that climate change is causing the months of intense heat and lack of humidity to be extended: this great fire, in fact, started two weeks before the period defined by the Board.

The same organizations have also criticized the fact that in just one year the two most serious forest tragedies in the territory's history have taken place: last August,

Some flames that started in an overheated car engine destroyed 22,000 hectares in Ávila, a figure surpassed less than a month ago in the Sierra de la Culebra.

In both cases, they expose, there was a lack of human and material resources to turn them off on time.