The Government of Castilla-La Mancha and the agricultural organizations Asaja and UPA have closed a package of measures that will shortly be incorporated into the Order of Fire Prevention that the Ministry of Environment will publish in the coming days, with the aim of making agricultural work compatible with forest protection during the peak-risk season.
After a new meeting between all the parties, the first vice president of the regional government, José Luis Martínez Guijarro, has emphasized that the agreement reached responds to the joint work of the sectors involved and seeks, through collaboration and coordination, to reconcile the interests of the countryside with the essential prevention of fires in a context of "tightening weather conditions during the summer," as the Junta has indicated in a press release.
Among the agreed changes, the area from which restrictions will be applied in periods of high and extreme risk is increased. The threshold goes from the five hectares included until now in the Order regulating the activity to 20 hectares. Thus, agricultural plots bordering forest land of less than 20 hectares may be harvested without time restrictions.
The main new feature that will be incorporated into the new Order is that, in forest areas of more than 20 hectares, it will be permitted to enable a 10-meter-wide perimeter strip that is uncultivated or sown with sunflowers in the areas bordering the woodland, so that the harvesters will be exempt from restrictions and may operate at any time of day.
In the remaining cases, that is, when 20 hectares are exceeded and that protection strip does not exist, the current regime of restrictions linked to the Very High and Extreme Potential Fire Spread Index (IPP) will be maintained for agricultural holdings located next to forest masses that exceed 20 hectares.
In addition, for days with extreme IPP, the obligation to have 400 liters of pressurized water is relaxed, opening three alternatives: having a vehicle equipped with a tank of at least 400 liters of water and a propulsion system, having a blower machine with a blowing power greater than 30 Newtons, or having a pyrotechnic cartridge fire extinguisher trigger with at least eight cartridges.