In treble clef by Gustavo López
I have to admit that I had never heard of latent rays before. In fact, the first one who said something to me was Juanjo Martínez, the ‘Man of the Weather’ who traveled together until the La Patoja fire that occurred on the night of August 13. When we were in the car, he explained to me what it was about, and the truth is that he was telling me and it seemed incredible to me.
Because a latent lightning, or also called dormant lightning, is lightning that has struck a tree in the middle of a storm and that until after a few hours or even a few days, the tree does not show it. In this way, the interior of the tree is first consumed by taking both branches, trunk and roots, a sudden high temperature, and then it goes outside and shows its face. For this reason, it is very difficult to detect it beforehand, not even with the cameras or thermal detectors available to forest surveillance.
Having read the definition and understood its content, I must say that it still seems incredible, and although this was not what finally happened in the first fire this summer in Jumilla, it was what caused the one in Sierra Larga last Saturday.
Lightning and fatalities have hit Jumilla this summer, which in just 15 days has suffered the two most important fires this year in the Region of Murcia.
And once they have passed, the first thing to do is thank and applaud the work of the troops and the coordination of the administrations, whose reaction in both cases was present from the first minute. But you have to consider what happened and resolutely assume that fires are fought in winter. The mountains must be cleaned and cared for throughout the year and fire plans cannot be budgeted only from August 15 to September 15. That is a big mistake that this year has clearly demonstrated.
We are facing a hotter, drier, more flammable and more abandoned territory, which, therefore, suffers more frequent and devastating fires. For this reason, it is urgent to invest in our mountains and in rural activities. Because if they are not managed by the competent authorities, the flames will manage it in a dramatic way and what we lose is incalculable. And more so in a country where three quarters of its territory are at risk of desertification.
Thank you all for your work but you have to draw conclusions and not trip over the same stone again.
