2 arrested for fires as Spain fights 'forest terrorists'

[Daanyeer]

Source: International Herald Tribune
August 8, 2006 Author: Renwick McLean



MADRID The Spanish police announced Tuesday that they had arrested two people in connection with the forest fires that are sweeping across sections of northwestern Spain, as government officials said it was becoming increasingly clear that most of the fires had been deliberately set.

Five people have been arrested on suspicion of playing a role in starting the fires.

The blazes have killed three people and devastated more than 4,850 hectares, or 12,000 acres, of land in the northwestern region of Galicia over the past week.

Many of the fires are being set near residential areas, forcing entire towns to evacuate and threatening the regional capital, Santiago de Compostela, according to government officials.

On Tuesday, Cristina Narbona, the environment minister, accused those responsible for the fires of conducting "forest terrorism."

Narbona called on local residents to report any suspicious activity to the police.

Ministry officials also said that army troops were on their way to Galicia to help the police the areas where most of the fires are originating.

Speaking at an academic conference in Santander, María Jesús Rodríguez, the deputy director of forest policy at the Environment Ministry, said Tuesday that it was difficult to determine exactly what was motivating the people who had set the fires.

But broadly speaking, she said, "the intent is very clearly to sow uneasiness and to alarm society."

She described the risk to Galicia as extreme.

"When you have so many fires, there is no possible method for cutting off the problem," she said.

"New fires start while you are extinguishing the others."

About half of all the forest fires registered each year in the European Union occur in Spain.

The exceptionally dry climate puts Spanish woodlands at high risk nearly every summer.

Galicia has more fires than any other region of Spain.