Reacción a "Weather conditions conducive to wildfires have worsened significantly in Spain and France"

The article provides some very interesting and valuable information on a topic of the utmost interest: the impact of climate change on the forest fires ravaging southern Europe. Whilst it is generally well known that global warming leads more frequently to conditions conducive to forest fires – as noted by the IPCC in its Sixth Assessment Report – this article presents figures that must be taken into account when managing firefighting efforts: such conditions have intensified by 50 per cent over the last decade compared with the period between 1981 and 2010, and the number of days with such conditions has also increased. Specifically, the study puts the increase at around 15 days. It should be noted that the State Meteorological Agency estimates, in its latest report on Spain’s climate, that the number of days under heatwave conditions in our country is increasing at a rate of three additional days per decade, so the correlation is clear.

There are many facets to the issue of forest fires, and forest management and the accumulation of plant matter—which subsequently acts as fuel—are undoubtedly crucial. This study also highlights this, stating that the total number of fires has fallen, probably due to improvements in prevention and pre-fire management. However, anthropogenic climate change also plays a significant role; it can make – and indeed is already making – fire control more difficult because the fires are more virulent due to plant matter that is extremely dry as a result of prevailing weather conditions of extreme heat and drought, which are now more frequent and intense.