In September 2019, a DANA destroyed the Vega Baja del Segura region, in the south of the Valencian Community. The storm left six dead, 4,000 people evacuated and 678 rescued, eighty roads closed and economic damage never seen before. The disaster provoked reflection within the autonomous government chaired by the socialist Ximo Puig in coalition with Compromís and Unidas Podemos on the coordination of emergencies in the autonomous community.
In September of the following year, during the general policy debate, the president announced the creation of a Valencian emergency unit, which he compared to the UME (military emergency unit), a body that would be equipped of a thousand soldiers, “professionals equipped with the versatility of forest firefighters, a vital body in the pandemic. Puig said: “We need an instrument that accelerates the response to a large-scale crisis.
The Valencian Emergency Unit was created by decree of February 22, 2023, four months before the regional elections. It has been defined as “a management unit of an operational and coordinating nature of the Generalitat through the Valencian Security and Emergency Response Agency”, dependent on the Ministry of Justice. Its objective was “intervention and collaboration throughout the Valencian Community or in support of other autonomous communities as well as state institutions and public administrations, in cases of serious risk, disaster or other public needs”, with work autonomy.
It was a coordinating body for firefighters from the provincial and emergency consortia in the event of disasters, according to sources in the previous executive. The special force was in an embryonic phase but already had a budget, facilities and the purchase of equipment was being managed. It brought together firefighters and foresters to “improve coordinated response in emergency situations,” these sources explain, with particular emphasis on forest fires and weather phenomena. It had autonomous operation within the framework of emergency management. After 40 years, the Consell considered that the response of the Generalitat Valenciana needed to be modified.
The agency was in a nascent phase at the time of the change of government, endowed that year with a budget of 9 million euros for its development. Directly, it had Forest Firefighter Units (UBF), forestry fire engines and helicopter-borne forest firefighter units, in addition to other means of operational and logistical coordination.
The UVE was the first public body to eliminate the PP and the Vox executive chaired by Carlos Mazón, who considered it a superfluous expense, in accordance with the administrative relief plan of the popular president. Some firefighter unions – the Platform of Firefighters and Firefighters of the Valencià Country – argued that the unit “doubled” the work of the consortia. Sources from the previous executive maintain that it was a coordinating body.
The Minister of Justice who promoted the repeal, Elisa Núñez, of Vox, He promised to bring “stability, professionalism and bold solutions that reverse the painful and diabolical situation that the Botanist left in terms of emergencies” and considered that the organization was a duplicity that added “more complexity to emergency management in the Valencian Community”. . The far-right party said the body “did not contribute to redefining this model, but rather made it worse and more complicated and only plunged into lack of coordination and disaster.” The president of the Generalitat defended Wednesday that “it was simply another fictitious organization, with zero additional firefighters, zero additional material means and zero efficiency”, in the face of criticism for its suppression.
