In judicial investigations, sometimes, witnesses who seem more secondaryly contribute very relevant keys. The Dana judge ran into June 17 with an official of the Emergency Coordination Center that put it on the track to locate the official data of the withdrawal of the firefighters of the firefighters who monitored the flow of the ravine of the Poyo, turned into one of the main routes of the instruction.
This is MRM, head of Forest Fire Extinction Service at the Emergency Coordination Center of the Generalitat de L'Eliana. The day of the Dana did not know anything about anything. His office is located on the ground floor, the last at the end of the hall, while the emergency room, the epicenter of the catastrophe response, is located on a upper floor, where the Integrated Operational Coordination Center (Cecopi) also met from 17.00.
That fateful day came to work at 8.20 and left at 15.05. He dedicated himself to bureaucratic issues that occupy his day to day: the management of the media. “During his workday, he had no perception that something special was happening, he was in his office and did not know anything,” according to the act of his statement to which Eldiario.es has had access. The testimony did not seem initially to contribute anything important until, without coming too much to the story, he referred to the withdrawal of the firefighters who monitored the flow of the Poyo ravine, a decision that he knew “for the press.”
This newspaper published exclusively on November 29 the information on the withdrawal of the troops that measured the flows (and the testimony of one of the firefighters on December 4). For his part, the head of the Provincial Firefighters Consortium, José Miguel Basset (currently retired), had to explanations about the decision in the framework of the Dana Study Commission in the Diputación de Valencia. While at first he said it was because they were “wanting to eat”, after being denied by firefighters (who taught the food ticket they had sought to continue with the surveillance of the flows), Basset apologized.
Predictor, the head of service wanted to inform himself well before declaring before the instructor judge, who had cited her as a witness. “She is not in the room (emergency), so later when she learned the subject and knew they were going to call her (to testify), she wanted to be informed,” says the testing act.
The witness asked Immaculate Piles, also head of service, to get the information stored in the 'coordcom', the black box that records the operational decisions against emergencies, on the demobilization of firefighters. “When she asks for information on the case (the technical concept that refers to the annotation of any incidence in the 'coordcom'), Immaculate Piles facilitates this report,” according to the declaration's act as a MRM witness
Although he did not remember “exactly” what the report said, the woman described broadly in the room of the City of Justice the petition to the Provincial Firefighters Consortium to control the Poyo ravine. “He knows because he read that, but not because he was on the subject, because the mobilization of forest firefighters is really done by the provincial consortium of Valencia,” he told questions of the judge.
The official clarified that he had “looked at it three or four months later” on the record day to document his statement in the court. He also clarified that it is information that cannot consult “anyone”, although he did not know if it was “secret, intimate or confidential” and if “more people” had had access.
“If I wanted to know who ordered the withdrawal of forest firefighters, I would have to ask for the information to the consortium (provincial), if they were the ones who withdrew them, it supposes yes,” explained the official. And he added in reference to the emergency data: “To obtain that document, the deputy director should be directed,” the senior official Jorge Suárez.
After his statement, the popular accusation exercised by Intersindical asked the judge to investigate the annotations in the 'coordcom' on the operation of the Firefighters to monitor the flow of the Rambla del Poyo. Another witness who subsequently declared, a coordination service manager, confirmed that at the Emergency Coordination Center they did not find out about the withdrawal of firefighters. The demobilization of the operation left “blind” emergencies, he said graphically.
The order to return to the base
The instructor judge, in a car on June 18, agreed to contribute by the Provincial Firefighters Consortium, directed in the DANA by the chief inspector José Miguel Basset, the documentation on the surveillance operation of the Rambla del Poyo. Basset was, together with Suárez, one of the technicians who had the most weight in the decisions that were made within the Cecopi. Both are summoned to testify as witnesses.
The report, published by this newspaper, reviews that a unit formed by a light vehicle and a pumper was sent at 13.05 to control the upper part of the basin, in Riba-Roja.
However, given the decrease in water level in the Rambla del Poyo, “about 14.43” received the order to return to the base “to be in expectation of service,” says the report incorporated into the cause.
