The plenary session of the Consell approved this Friday the aid decree to alleviate the consequences of the Villanueva de Viver (Castellón) fire, which also affected the municipalities of Fuente la Reina, Montán, Montanejos and Puebla de Arenoso and destroyed 4,700 hectares of high ecological value.
In total, there will be 2.5 million euros that will be used for agricultural, environmental and socioeconomic recovery, with special attention to the tourism sector.
From the publication of the agreement, the town councils will have 30 days to submit estimates of damage to infrastructures and public goods and of the damages that agricultural facilities and infrastructures or other economic sectors other than forestry may have suffered.
Natural persons who have suffered damage to assets that are not covered by the insurance system or for extraordinary expenses that they have urgently had to make as a result of the forest fire may also claim aid.
For the processing of these aids, it has been agreed to create a Single Post-Emergency Office in which the affected municipalities will be able to process aid applications.
The objective, as explained by the vice president and spokesperson for the Consell, Aitana Mas, is that "all the areas that were affected by the forest fire can return to normality as soon as possible."
As was done after the fires last summer in Bejís (Castellón) and Vall d'Ebo (Alicante), the aid for urgent actions will be integrated into a comprehensive plan, endowed with one million euros provided by the central administrations and regional, intended for the environmental recovery of the Alto Mijares region, in which the municipalities affected by the fire registered in March are located.
As the President of the Generalitat, Ximo Puig, has pointed out, they work with a formula that arises from the agreement between rurality and environmental protection, taking into account that general depopulation, the abandonment of many cultivated areas that end up being fuel for the fires.
Thus, part of this aid will be allocated to farmers and cooperatives that maintain agricultural production.
"We need structural measures to mitigate the situation," said Puig.
For this comprehensive plan, which also seeks the socioeconomic reactivation of the region, direct aid to municipalities, subsidized financial lines or extraordinary employment plans have been provided.
It will also deploy actions to repair damage caused by the fires and for the forestry and environmental restoration phase of the burned municipalities.
These two routes will be joined by the million and a half euros that the central government and the Generalitat will also invest in a tourism sustainability plan of 1.5 million, after an agreement also signed with the Montanejos City Council.
This will make it possible to launch initiatives aimed at "continuing to consolidate population and high-quality tourism," according to Puig.
