The CSIF and Uscal unions will mobilize on June 1 at the doors of the Ministry of the Environment to return to demand more effective from the Board for the fully public fire operation in all checkpoint crews and firefighters, and available all year , both in winter and summer.
The person in charge of the Environment in the CSIF Board sector, Marcelino Arribas, and the vice-secretary of Uscal, Esau Escolar, today analyzed the situation of the Community in the face of possible large fires like the one last week in the Urdes and ruled that Castilla and León lacks workers to be able to face a fire like that. In addition, they threaten to go on strike this summer if this problem is not solved
They also complain that they have met up to three times already with the general director of the Natural Environment and Forest Policy, José Ángel Arranz, to define the fire prevention, surveillance and extinction plan for this year, after the Social Dialogue agreement. , for its extension throughout the exercise, but that they continue without advancing, and they even accuse him of going to these meetings without content.
“He just talks and talks but without a concrete proposal for the operation for 2023,” denounced the union centrals.
Esau Escolar also warns that the Board does not even have trucks to carry out the awareness campaign for 5th grade students ‘It depends on everyone, it depends on you’. “The media are regrettable,” he says, while stating that with medium risk the only thing that has been done is “change the schedule” of the checkpoints to the hours of the hottest time slot; and there are the same environmental agents as in January or December.
“We have seen, once again, how highly virulent fires occur on these atypical dates, such as the recent Pinofranqueado fire with more than 10,000 burned hectares a few kilometers from the province of Salamanca, and we wonder if we are prepared for a fire of those dimensions,” he adds.
For this reason, it demands that their proposals be heard and that they not be laughed at.
Marcelino Arribas points out, for his part, that the Executive is determining the risk of fires “on the fly”, and that at the moment the “medium” level has been declared, but “there are no more means than during the low season”. “We continue with the same guards because the system has not been defined, it is all an improvisation”, he warns.
He asserted that both the counselor and the general manager are “continuously boasting about the device and the great investment of the Community to improve it, but reality tells us otherwise, because that is not reflected.”
“We defend a 100% public operation, made up of officials and labor personnel of the Board, not private companies, because Castilla y León is going in the opposite direction with the Social Dialogue agreement and most of the investment goes to public companies and private”, he concludes.
