Lecturer at the Universitat Politècnica de València, former Dean of the Official College of Forestry Engineers and President of PEFC-International.
The frequency and magnitude of extreme wildfires appear to have doubled in the last 20 years. Moreover, the six most extreme years for these events have occurred since 2017, according to a paper published in Nature Ecology & Evolution in which the authors used satellite data from 2003 to 2023.
The fire that originated on August 15 between the Tenerife municipalities of Arafo and Candelaria, in the northeast of the island, is advancing on several fronts and has affected more than 13,000 hectares, although the firefighting services have stabilized it in some points. The people evacuated in the last days have been thousands. As confirmed by the president of the Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo, the fire has been caused.
How to tackle the remaining forest fires? The author proposes that long-term policy measures are needed that go beyond reactive firefighting, which can aggravate the problem.