Forest fire season begins in San Miguel de Allende

Published December 12th, 2021

The director of Civil Protection of San Miguel de Allende, Roberto Perez Solis said that they receive 3 to 4 reports per day about grass fires or vacant lots; in addition, it is expected that this season there will be approximately 1500 to 2000 thousand reports to attend.

“An average of 360 fires are reported as forest fires and the rest become fires in vacant lots or pastures”.

In order to prevent fires, the population is asked to help by cleaning their lots or land, to making firebreaks, as this minimizes the risks to their property, health, and life of people.

It is also recommended to avoid lighting bonfires in this dry season, when weather conditions are not in our favor, we have an increased risk of fire.

“In case of observing a forest or pasture type fire, please notify the 911 emergency system immediately or call 152091, so that they can make the report and we can channel it, locate and assess what resources are required to mitigate the situation that is occurring,” he said.

The public is also asked to avoid burning garbage, which many times can be confused with grass fires or can generate a grass fire.

“People who do not have the knowledge or the necessary tools to deal with an emergency of this type, should not expose themselves and wait for the arrival of the Fire Department or the Civil Protection brigade or qualified personnel who could mitigate the risk or deal with the emergency,” said Perez Solis.

In addition, the population is invited not to throw solid waste or glass into vacant lots that could generate a fire risk.

Parents are also asked not to buy fireworks during the holiday season as this could cause a grass fire or a fire in their own property.

He assured that there are people who carry out pruning, collect weeds known as leaf litter, pile it up somewhere and this also becomes a risk factor due to the conditions to attend a fire of this type.

We ask you to report people who are burning, this is important because there is a competent authority in the sense of sanctioning these behaviors and they can report them to the emergency system.

As Civil Protection we are very concerned about preventing and avoiding a high grassland or forest fire season, at the end of the day we find that this has an impact on our ecosystem, economy, health, safety, and our heritage.

In 2018 we had more than 1600 fires which came to result in an affectation of 6 percent of the Sanmiguelense territory.

This year we had a quite considerable rainy season, this is obviously going to have repercussions in having high dry grass, there is going to be too much undergrowth and in this dry season, it is going to affect the fires.

We have already identified the most recurrent points where most of the fires occur and we are approaching the landowners to take preventive measures, orienting the way in which they can carry out cleaning works, elaboration of firebreaks so that the risk is lower and in case of a fire it has the least repercussions to the patrimony and the health of the people.