Òdena Wildfire has affected the LIFE Montserrat project area
31 July 2015
On July 26th a forest fire started in the municipality of Òdena. In two days it has burnt almost 1300 hectares, mainly of bush and forest. Fortunately, there have been no personal injuries and it has all ended up with a significant extension of forest destroyed by fire.
During the first two hours the fire spread and moved fast to the east under moderate west wind conditions. At that point, fire progress was taking place through the generation of secondary outbreaks far ahead of the fire frontline to the extent that it jumped easily to the other side of the C-37 road and followed its advance to the north and to the east, pointing the residential areas of Montserrat Park and Ca l’Esteve, both having to be evacuated. Also some country houses of the area were affected and two roads (C-37 and BP-1101) were cut off. In the evening the situation had overpowered the extinction capacity of conventional firefighting resources and the use of technical fire was required. Suppression fires were then used to establish effective control lines ahead of the wildfire front.
At the end of the day the estimated burnt area exceeded 1000 hectares and the fire was still burning although weather conditions had improved. The eastern sea breeze had become the prevailing wind and as night fell humidity levels had raised up to 100%, much above the 20% existing a few hours before when ignition occurred and the fire started.
During the next day weather conditions remained quite favourable and firemen kept working on fire suppression operations. In the afternoon the fire was contained and roads could be reopened and people evacuated could go back home.
On the night of July 27th 90 fire units were still working in the area and in the evening of July 28th fire was finally under control.
With regard to the LIFE Montserrat project, over 750 hectares in the municipalities of El Bruc and Sant Salvador de Guardiola, both of them within the project area, have been affected. All forestry works carried out in these areas during the last year have been lost. They were mainly actions conducted in strategic areas to lower Aleppo pine population densities. According to firemen these forestry works have proved to be effective as they helped them in their effort to stop the fire at the BP-1101 road. If it would have not been stopped at that point it would have spread towards Montserrat Natural Park and the area affected would have been much larger.
If this same wildfire would have happened a few years later with the project actions already consolidated the resilience to fire and the protection effects would have been even stronger.
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