The Civil Guard of Alicante has clarified four crimes of allegedly intentional arson, which have affected forest land, and four crimes of damage as a result of several fires produced in agricultural and urban areas.
The actions began after the Civil Guard of Xaló had knowledge of the occurrence for a year, of several fires in forest areas in an area near the bed of the Gorgos river and in the vicinity of the town of Alcalalí. Some events that had generated a certain social alarm among the neighbors.
The first investigations followed by the Xaló agents and components of the Benissa Research Area, revealed that the four forest fires had taken place in a single area near the Gorgos river, framed in just 400 m².
The area in which the fires had occurred was a protected area and classified as a Site of Community Interest (SCI) in the Natura 2000 Network, since it was a site of high ecological value, one of almost 1.500 in Spain. that have the same cataloging, and that are protected to guarantee the long-term survival of species and habitats.
As a result of the joint work that the agents carried out with the Fire Investigation Group of the Department of Agriculture of the Generalitat Valenciana, the alleged intentionality of the fires could be determined, thus
such as the existing similarities in the modus operandi and schedules, in which the alleged perpetrator acted, in this case while going out for a walk in the morning.
The exhaustive visual inspections of the Civil Guard together with the technical reports of causes prepared by the environmental agents and the citizen collaboration of the residents of several localities, were key to identify and locate, in the place where the fire had started, a person with the same physical features in all cases.
The analysis of the information obtained revealed that there was a connection between the events investigated so far and four other fires that had taken place in the same area, three of them on agricultural land and the other in an area close to residential and residential areas. rustic houses of the town.
The man, object of the investigation, aged 80 and of Spanish nationality, has been arrested as the alleged perpetrator of four forest fires in a protected area classified as a Site of Community Interest (SCI) and of four crimes of damage to agricultural land and urban because of the fires it supposedly caused.
