The month of May closed with a serious industrial fire in the town of Almassora, which affected the premises of a warehouse storing tons of textile waste. The highly flammable nature of the material, coupled with the lack of compartmentalization or segmentation of the premises, facilitated the rapid spread of the fire, with columns of smoke visible for miles, causing widespread public alarm. To combat this fire, the Castellón Province Fire Department allocated a large number of resources consisting of twelve firefighting crews, nine from the Consortium and three from Castellón City Council, along with several additional resources from the Consortium, specifically two 35,000-liter heavy water tankers, three command units and four leadership units, the Machinery and Logistics Unit, and the Mobile Coordination Unit. These units were also assisted by four forest firefighting units and a GVA helicopter.
Present at the Advanced Command Post were the President of the Castellón Provincial Council, Marta Barrachina; the Regional Secretary of Emergencies for the GVA, Irene Rodríguez; the Mayor of Almassora, María Tormo; and the Deputy Firefighter, David Vicente, who was present from the very beginning, following the progress of the fire. The Consortium expresses its gratitude for the coordination and collaboration of all the administrations.
A global extinguishing operation of 65 personnel was supported by the important security efforts of the Local Police, the Regional Police, and the Civil Guard. The fire site had to be evacuated as a precaution.
The intense extinguishing work lasted up to four days, initially marked by the inaccessibility of the site and reinforced throughout by the Machinery and Logistics Unit’s efforts to remove the material, once these resources could be safely brought in.
