Fifty firefighters from the Balearic Islands will help extinguish the fires in Castile and León.

PalmFifty firefighters from the Balearic Islands will be deployed to Castile and León to assist in extinguishing the fires that have been reported in the region for several days.

This was decided at the technical coordination meeting for the contingent, which took place this Monday afternoon at the headquarters of the Government's General Directorate of Emergencies and the Interior.

The Minister for the Presidency, Coordination of Government Action, and Local Cooperation, Antònia Maria Estarellas, announced that the contingent that will be deployed to Castile and León will be made up of 50 firefighters, several vehicles (including two fire engines), and resources for fire perimeter control.

The personnel (who will all be coordinated by the General Directorate of Emergencies) will be mainly from the different Civil Protection groups, the Palma Fire Department, and the Menorca Fire Department. About twenty firefighters from Mallorca will be deployed, the Island Council reported.

It has not yet been decided which specific area of Castile and León they will be deployed to, the councilor indicated. In any case, the contingent will depart this Tuesday morning from Mallorca, Menorca, and Ibiza and will join up once on the peninsula to head northwest.

The Balearic Islands will not send forest firefighters from the Balearic Institute of Nature (Ibanat), as they consider the risk of fire in the archipelago, due to the high temperatures, to remain high, Estarellas explained.

"We are not mobilizing any type of personnel that lacks the response capacity that we can have on the islands," the second vice president of the Executive assured in statements to the media. The councilor conveyed the Government's solidarity with the different autonomous communities affected by the fires and called for "unity in the response." "We need to work together to extinguish the multiple outbreaks as quickly as possible," he declared.

The operation

The Director General of Emergencies and the Interior, Pablo Gárriz, has indicated that the operation will be carried out under a "command cell" shared between his department and the General Directorate of the Natural Environment, supported by Environmental Agents.

The team will be made up of two operational subgroups, each made up of around twenty personnel and a fire engine. One of them is from the Palma Fire Department and the other from the Menorca Fire Department, and in no case were they withdrawn from service against the forest fires in the Balearic Islands, Gárriz emphasized.

They will be joined by six light firefighting teams, which will carry "light tools and high-pressure equipment that allow for very fine work in hard-to-reach areas." "That is what they have asked us for, and that is what we have designed and are offering," he emphasized.

The operational team will be accompanied by a logistical support group for supplies, travel, and administrative procedures. Also traveling to Castile and León will be an IbDigital trailer providing satellite communications capability, and an ambulance and a medical logistics vehicle from SAMU 061 to ensure the protection of the volunteers.

Although all of these personnel will be coordinated by the government, they will be under the command of the Castile and León command post.