Bombers
A large fire in Léida, in northeastern Catalonia, which firefighters classify as “sixth generation”, modified atmospheric conditions, creating a “pyrooculus”, which in half an hour reached speeds of 28 km/h. It is the “new normality”.
The violent fire that caused two deaths in Léida, Catalonia, is an example of a New category of fires forests, which firefighters classify as “sixth generation“.
These phenomena are “capable of generating unpredictable convective processes” that drastically alter fire behavior, explains to the forest engineer and bomberos de la Generalita subspector Edgar Nebot.
These fires manifest themselves through Pyrocuse – Clouds of gases and water vapor that can reach extraordinary heights. On Tuesday, this phenomenon reached 14 km highgenerating winds that made the fire advance at 28 km/h, one of the highest speeds ever recorded.
In addition to climate change that provides conditions for the formation of these pyrocumulums, Tuesday’s phenomenon was also due to the abundant amount of FUEL MATERIAL FOUND – Mainly cereal agricultural fields still by spoon, explains Nebot.
“As long as the grains are formed to the harvestthe landscape becomes extremely vulnerable, with Tons of dry fuel“, Details the forest engineer, who underlines the devastating socioeconomic impact on local farmers.
Also Luis Berbielavice president of the Pau Costa Foundation, an entity created after the Horta de Sant Joan catástrophethat in 2009 consumed an area of 1,140 hectares in the Ports de Tortosa-Ceseit region of Catalonia, and resulted in the deaths of five firefightersalert for this “new normality“.
According to the expert, When the vegetation burnsreleases huge amounts of heat that make the air rise quicklyshock with the high layers of the atmosphere and collapse, creating chaotic directions on fire fronts.
This phenomenon Makes evacuations extremely difficultforcing the confinement of populations. Tuesday’s fire, which confirms the fears of firefighters on the Spring vegetation conversion in censer fuel after drying, consumed 5.500 hectares of agricultural land.
The fire, which forced the confinement of about 20,000 people in several Catalan municipalities, it coincided with the southern Europe, which sprangled temperature records and reached an unprecedented geographical extension that extended from England to the Balkans.
