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 ravaged by fire in Spain. Did you expect a summer like this?

“Yes, we did expect it; it was one of the lessons learnt from last year. We can no longer rely on winter or summer rains to ensure a quiet fire season as we used to. The extremely intense and widespread heatwaves we’re experiencing are what’s triggering these fires and these extreme fire seasons that we’ve been facing since 2021, starting with the two fires in the Sierra Culebra – which burnt more than 60,000 hectares – and the one in Navalacruz, which burnt a further 20,000 hectares.

For me, that was the real turning point, which was cemented last year by what we experienced in August and what we are already experiencing in July. It is the heatwaves that are the real drivers of these extreme fires, not droughts as they were in the past.”

What has gone wrong with prevention?

“The concept of ‘prevention’ in the context of wildfires is a highly complex issue that must address many different levels: social factors, land-use management, regional and local plans, the concept of self-protection within our society, and so on… This cannot be tackled from one year to the next; it requires a way of understanding risk that fosters a culture at all levels – social and political – which prioritises prevention in all its dimensions, as I mentioned earlier. This takes time and a cultural shift in how we face the risks we encounter as a society. The idea of clearing the woodland is a very, very simple concept for an extremely complex structural problem.”

What are your predictions for the rest of the summer?

“The further into the summer we go, the worse it will get, as more fuel will be added to the equation, although it already seems that all the conditions are in place, judging by the patterns observed in many places; because as long as it doesn’t rain, the condition of the fuel will continue to deteriorate.

All we can do is keep an eye on the wind and the dry thunderstorms, which can cause the number of fires to multiply in a very short space of time and overwhelm the emergency services. These two factors are what will truly determine how the fire season ends. We still have two tough months ahead of us.”