The insurer of a vehicle which caused a fire in the Sierra de Mijas in July 2001 is to pay out €2.5 million in compensation to the Junta de Andalucía to cover the costs of extinguishing the blaze and the subsequent clean-up operation. The case is unprecedented in Spain.
The fire occurred on the night of July 21st 2001 in Puerto Colorado. A group of tourists were travelling from Mijas to Coín when the engine of their Mitsubishi Pajero Sport began to overheat and subsequently caught fire. High winds caused a spark from this fire to ignite the dry countryside and so began a huge forest fire which caused damage to 590 hectares of pine forest, 1,600 hectares of agricultural land and necessitated evacuating 300 people from their homes in various urbanisations around Mijas. The blaze took three days to extinguish.
The compensation claim by the Junta de Andalucía has been a long process. It started as a claim against the driver of the vehicle but was subsequently expanded to involve the manufacturer, the insurer and the garage where the vehicle had undergone repairs. The final ruling was an indictment of the German insurance company Volksfürsorge, although ‘negotiations’ between the company and the Ministry of Environment prevented the case from actually going to trial.