Reacción a "So far this year, almost 120,000 hectares have been destroyed by fire in Spain – one of the highest figures recorded for this time of year"

July isn’t even over yet, and almost 120,000 hectares have already been burnt in Spain. Did you expect a summer like this?

“As far back as our records go, July is the worst month – with very few exceptions – as it is when the days are at their longest and, as a result, there is less chance of dew and the lowest monthly rainfall of the year, as well as a steeper angle of the sun’s rays and less cloud cover. The week beginning 4 July 1994 was by far the one in which the most hectares were burnt in Spain.

From October 2024 to April this year, we experienced a very wet period across the whole of Spain, meaning the load of dry herbaceous vegetation is considerable, given that this was followed by three extremely dry months. At least in dry years, the amount of available herbaceous vegetation is much lower. On the other hand, we are seeing an increase in non-typical forest fires (urban-forest interface: Los Gallardos, Almería; Guadalajara and Aragón), several of which are linked to the cereal harvest in a year of bumper crops, where there are fears of crop loss due to fire, which may lead to a higher incidence of fires caused by combine harvesters. On the other hand, if the harvest takes place, the fuel load is reduced and the land could also be ploughed to create discontinuity in the stubble, given that the lighter the fuel, the faster the fire spreads.

Furthermore, Copernicus estimates tend to overstate the area burnt, as they overlook areas within the perimeter that do not burn for various reasons, as well as non-forested areas (agricultural, urban, infrastructure, reservoirs, etc.). In fact, MITECO confirmed last year that of the 400,000 hectares reported by Copernicus, only 300,000 were forested, of which 100,000 were wooded; thus, despite it being one of the worst years since 2000, the natural expansion of woodland in our country—estimated at at least 130,000 hectares a year—plus reforestation efforts more than make up for even a year like last year in terms of forest area.”

What has gone wrong with prevention?

“It must be remembered that prevention — which is the key to this challenge — has two meanings: the strict or administrative sense, and the comprehensive sense. The first is limited to ensuring sufficient personnel, observation systems, high-quality meteorological monitoring tailored to the local area, monitoring of fuel moisture (indicator species), water reservoirs, accessible roads, clearing of forest tracks, maintenance of firebreaks, and so on. The second also addresses the very widespread state of neglect of forest areas, particularly those located in drier, unprofitable regions that are highly prone to fire, as well as the prevalence of smallholdings, abandoned crops in the process of becoming forest stands, scrubland and grassland—which, in the majority of cases, have been abandoned.

In the first area—which is the one the authorities refer to when asked—we are in reasonably good shape, except for meteorological observations, where the zoning is not detailed enough in mountainous areas—at least in the Mediterranean region—to enable, in the event of a fire, the prediction of wind conditions over the next 6–8 hours and the avoidance of unnecessary risks to firefighting personnel. Meteocat, by contrast, provides the Generalitat’s firefighters with a high level of detail and reliability. Furthermore, as soon as one enters protected areas, the network of forest tracks ceases to be adequate and thus hinders access to the hills in the event of a fire, as was evident at the end of August last year in the Sierra Norte de Guadalajara, where forests at an altitude of 2,000 metres were left to burn simply because they were inaccessible, which is why environmental regulations and the requirement for fire access routes to undergo environmental impact assessments must be reviewed, given that, in the case of projects with far greater environmental impact, ways are sought and found to mitigate them (for example, the expansion of the Port of Valencia).

But the real bottleneck lies in prevention in the broadest sense, where rural depopulation is the central problem – in terms of both its demographic dimension and that of agriculture and livestock farming – and where it is imperative to integrate fire management into the CAP in order to build resilient regions. Vast areas such as those affected this year in Guadalajara and Aragón are characterised by minuscule population densities typical of Lapland or Siberia, despite being surrounded by Spain’s most densely populated areas; moreover, almost the entire population there is retired. As Marta Corella, former mayor of Orea, rightly points out, ‘a village that does not smell of wood will smell of smoke’. We are mistaken if we think we can leave a considerable part of our territory in limbo and without any management. What we are seeing is the backlash from this lack of judgement, exacerbated by the dream of a wild landscape that has not existed here, at least not for the last 500,000 years, since humans first mastered fire.”

What is your forecast for the rest of the summer?

“There’s no sign of an improvement in weather conditions for the time being, although the average suggests that August usually brings an improvement in terms of rainfall — though also a higher risk of lightning — longer nights and less direct sunlight. We must also bear in mind that the drought currently affecting France is on an epic scale and that we might not be able to rely on resources from other countries if the situation worsens in our region. On a positive note, Portugal is having an average year and we hope it does not get any worse.”