The fire started in August 2012 near the houses in the Barranco Blanco in Coín (Málaga). JON NAZCA (Portal)
The Malaga Provincial Court has acquitted the sole defendant in the forest fire that devastated 8,500 hectares along the Costa del Sol in 2012 and left two people dead. The environmental prosecutor requested seven and a half years’ imprisonment for a gardener whom she accused of having lit a bonfire in a farm in the Barranco Blanco area, in the municipality of Coín (Málaga, 24,309 inhabitants), to burn trimmings and leave the place without turn him off. However, the court concluded that “it cannot be determined with certainty and certainty what cause caused the fire,” the 82-page judgment said. This acquittal concludes a process that has dragged on for more than a decade due to the sheer number of victims – corporations, municipalities, communities and individuals – and the scarce resources of the court that handled the case.
The 2012 fire was one of the worst fires in Malaga’s history. The flames erupted in the afternoon of August 30 and over the next five days burned 8,500 hectares in the municipalities of Mijas, Marbella, Monda, Alhaurín el Grande and Ojén, displacing 4,000 residents. Two people died – one because she didn’t want to leave her home when told to vacate it – and four others were injured. The prosecutor pointed out that the gardener went to a house owned by a foreign national who was in his country at the time and who had done little work during the court proceedings.
Prosecutors understood the suspect had started a fire to clean up the remains of oleander, cypress and palm trees and that he had not put it out before leaving the site. The defendant has admitted that he was in the same place that day, but that he was doing maintenance and had never done any cutting work or lit a fire.
The judgment proves that the man was working on the farm that day and that he intentionally dumped the remains of cutting and cleaning plants “in a place where stubble fires used to be made with ash stains”. From this, the property owner transfers them to a clean place. For the court, however, there is no evidence that “the defendant set fire to or burned those stubble and trimmings on that day, at that place, and at that time.” It is noted that there is no evidence to support this thesis or that the person ultimately acquitted violated fire safety and fire safety codes.
Another victim of the flames was always the owner of the house, whose damage amounted to more than 20 million euros. Public spending amounted to 1.3 million euros, as participation required 43 helicopters and planes, 27 vehicles, more than 500 specialists and 400 members of the Emergency Military Unit (UME).
The expert reports and evidence presented during the trial showed that the mountain’s conditions at the time, with high temperatures, low humidity, dry grass and swirling and changing winds, were key to the severity of the fire. However, the court is of the opinion that there is no way to determine the exact location of the fire “with the necessary certainty and certainty”. So she interprets the “rational doubt” in favor of the examined, and that “no one can be held responsible for it”. Also no subsidiary civil liability towards the owner of the property.
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The implementation of the process has been delayed by more than ten years for various reasons. Firstly, the scarcity of resources of the Coín court responsible for the case, a similar situation to other municipalities in Malaga, a complaint regularly repeated in the reports of the Supreme Court of Andalusia (TSJA). . Secondly, communication is very difficult due to the large number of people affected by the flames, almost 350, including individuals, neighborhood communities, businesses or municipalities. Finally, there were administrative problems after the company that assessed the losses of each aggrieved party expired its contract with the Junta de Andalucía when the work was practically complete and the new beneficiary had to repeat the process.
open cases
A few days ago, the Court of First Instance and Instruction No. 3 of Ronda approved the provisional stay of the case that was being investigated against four people in connection with the fire reported in the Sierra Bermeja area, in the municipality of Pujerra last June, at which burned almost 5,000 hectares and forced the displacement of almost 2,000 people. Meanwhile, the classified investigation continues into the fire that devastated 10,000 hectares in 2021, causing the death of a firefighter and an area of Spanish fir trees in the same area. Due to its virulence, difficulty of extinguishing and speed of spread, among other characteristics, it is considered a sixth generation fire and considered intentional. The origin of the flames that devastated nearly 2,000 hectares in Alhaurín El Grande and Sierra de Mijas last summer is also still under investigation.