“I am very well taken care of, but my concern is that no one informs me about the state of my home,” says José Manuel, a resident of El Tiemblo in Ávila, from Escalona (Toledo). The municipality, along with Talavera de la Reina, is a refuge for hundreds of people displaced by the swarm of fires in Ávila and Madrid. The Burgohondo fire has forced the evacuation of 11 municipalities in the area closest to the Tiétar Valley. In total, 5,200 people have been displaced from their homes, not so much by the proximity of the flames as by the intense smoke covering the area. About 2,000 are in Talavera de la Reina, in several facilities set up by the City Council since Saturday afternoon, when the first Es-Alert messages with evacuation orders began to be issued to the population.
The advance of the fire from Ávila and the proximity of the fires devastating the Sierra Oeste of Madrid have been threatening the municipalities of northeastern Toledo since Saturday, when the central government extended the national emergency to this province. The flames threaten to cross the border between Madrid and Castilla-La Mancha through two urbanizations in Almorox, which have already been evacuated. One of them was the origin of the fire that spread to the Madrid municipality of Villa del Prado on Wednesday, devastating several chalets, and which now threatens Toledo again after joining with the one declared in San Martín de Valdeiglesias. A hundred evacuees from the urbanizations of El Pinar and El Romillo have been rehoused in the sports pavilion of Escalona along with other evacuees from Madrid and Ávila.
Infocam resources have reinforced their presence in this area bordering the Community of Madrid, with a flank already stabilized that threatens to reactivate at any moment, and in the Tiétar Valley, where Castilla-La Mancha has installed a new command post in La Iglesuela to coordinate efforts in the Toledo area. The containment lines made by the brigades with heavy machinery, hand tools, and widening burns already total about 20 kilometers and have prevented the Burgohondo fire from entering Castilla-La Mancha. “The work is being quite effective, but we must continue working to stabilize the Toledo sector,” explains José Almodóvar, Deputy Minister of Environment.
In Almorox, ground crews and aerial resources have managed to stop the advance of the fire from the Sierra Oeste of Madrid, with reactivations this Sunday in the Villa del Prado area. “We were able to contain it before, but we are very vigilant.” “We are going to be optimistic and hope that all the maneuvers that all the regional administrations and the State are jointly establishing will work and that throughout today and tomorrow we will be able to contain this very serious and damaging complex of fires,” says the Minister of Sustainable Development, Mercedes Gómez, who warns of a “very unfavorable” scenario if forecasts are met and a new heat wave arrives this week.
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No return date
For those evacuated in Toledo, there is still no return date. “They will not be able to return until the complete safety of all people can be guaranteed,” explains Carlos Ángel Devia, sub-delegate of the central government in Toledo. The UME will analyze the situation in case some rehousing is possible, but Devia warns against generating “any expectations” while the danger persists. What will be enabled are “safe corridors” so that livestock farmers can feed their herds. This Saturday, 14 trucks managed to remove about 220 head of livestock, including horses and cattle, from the evacuated municipalities. The City Council has boxes and corrals at the Talavera fairgrounds in case any farmer needs to relocate their animals.
In that space, with hundreds of bunk beds installed by the military from the Cerro Negro detachment, the displaced from several municipalities in Tiétar try to rest, anxious about the fate of their homes. “Waiting. We have no other choice. We want to go back, we have our pets there and we are worried,” says a resident of Sotillo de la Adrada who managed to get one of the last available rooms in a Talavera hotel. “A woman in a wheelchair came to ask us how we were, we couldn’t speak from emotion. It’s nice that there’s humanity,” says Esteban, a resident of Pelahustán (Toledo), who has already spent his first night at Talavera Ferial. “This experience overcomes misfortune,” he adds, summarizing the empathy among those affected and the gratitude to those who are helping them.
In Escalona, about 50 kilometers from Talavera, the rehoused number around a hundred. They come from the two urbanizations of Almorox evacuated on Saturday, but also from the towns of Cenicientos and Cadalso de los Vidrios, in Madrid, and from Ávila. “They spent a quiet night, they were offered dinner, they had breakfast and lunch with what we prepared from the City Council in coordination with Citizen Protection. Worried about what might happen to their homes, but with the peace of mind of being well received,” explains Álvaro Gutiérrez, mayor of Escalona. “My plot has burned and I don’t know if the house has too,” insists José Manuel, the only resident from Ávila among the Toledo refugees in this pavilion.
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