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ISSUE NO. 1774
4 - 10 July 2019
Newspaper in Spain 2017 & 2018
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Credit: Consorcio Provincial de Bomberos de Alicante
Elche’s famous palm groves hit by fires By Marco March ARSON is suspected after four separate fires destroyed up to 8,000 trees in E l c h e ’s Wo r l d H e r i t a g e listed palm groves. Elche Local Police, along with the Fire department and National Police have announced that an investigation has been opened, with first indications suggesting they were intentional fires. The palm grove of Elche was declared a World Heritage site by Unesco. The first fire was spotted at around 12.50am on Saturday in a palm orchard in La Hoya. Later, at around 2.25am, a second fire broke out in a grove in Algoros. At the same time another orchard began to burn, this time on the CV-856 at kilometre 1. Finally, at 6am, a fourth fire broke out on CV-851 at kilometre 2. The four fires, all in the municipality of Elche resulted in thousands of burnt palm trees - estimated to be up to 8,000 - ac-
BURNED: Up to 8,000 palms were destroyed. cording to fire brigade sources Twenty five firefighters from Elche, Crevillent, San Vicente and Almorabi stations fought the blazes alongside six from the forest firefighting unit. The fires were put out later the same day. The Elche Palmeral is
the name given to a number of date palm groves in
and around the city totalling about 200,000 trees.
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