Mireia Mollà backs the use of reclaimed water in fire prevention and extinction

• The regional ministry highlights the link between this pioneering experience and the goal of recycling 100% of wastewater.
• The regional minister for Ecological Transition announces a collaboration programme with EPSAR to reuse treated wastewater to fill firefighting water tanks.

The Valencian regional minister for Ecological Transition, Mireia Mollà, has endorsed the commitment to using reclaimed water from wastewater treatment plants in forest fire prevention and extinction programmes.

Mollà backed the optimisation of water resources during her visit today to the first water cannons installed in Riba-roja as part of the Guardian project, a pioneering prevention system that operates where forest land meets urban areas in the Parque Natural del Túria.

The initiative, 80% funded by the European Union, aims to improve resilience to forest fires by means of a fire containment barrier made up of 40 cannons supplied with reclaimed water.

The minister emphasised the “circularity” of the proposal, which uses 80,000 m³ of reclaimed water. “This pioneering experience is directly linked to the goal of recycling 100% of wastewater and to the Integrated Water Cycle, which allows water resources to be reused.”

In this case, the water comes from the Camp de Túria II wastewater treatment plant and will be conveyed to a water regeneration plant (ERA) to be cleaned and disinfected.

Mollà, who was accompanied by the Director General for Fire Prevention, Diego Marín, and the managing director of the public wastewater company (EPSAR), Juan Ángel Conca, presented the collaboration programme between the two departments to fill firefighting water tanks with treated and purified water.

Diego Marín specified that the Valencian Community “has 303 water tanks, while EPSAR has 487 treatment plants spread across the whole region, whose treated water could be used to supply the tanks”.

The Valencian Community is one of the most advanced regions in terms of reuse infrastructure, with 45 treatment plants with tertiary or advanced treatment capable of supplying quality water.

EPSAR’s managing director, Juan Ángel Conca, praised the regeneration unit used in Riba-roja as a way of completing the treatment at another 114 treatment plants with direct reuse.

Both the Directorate General for Fire Prevention and EPSAR are already working on the map of tanks and plants, and talks have progressed with the river basin authority (Confederación Hidrográfica) to identify the treatment plants likely to meet the criteria required for supply.

Innovation at the service of prevention

The Ecological Transition department highlighted the alliance between the municipalities of Riba-roja and Paterna, the Universitat de València, the Universitat Politècnica de Valencia and the companies Hidraqua, Cetaqua and Medi XXI to “promote cutting-edge sustainable initiatives that will serve as a model for developing efficient and effective firefighting mechanisms”.

Along these lines, the regional ministry referred to the development of innovative projects within the Estratègia Mosaic prevention strategy, combining satellite imagery and artificial intelligence, the Study for Determining Live Fuel Moisture (which analyses the water content of vegetation), and the historical phenology study, which makes it possible to predict fire behaviour and intensity.