fires

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.

We are finding fires that exceed the maximum extinguishing capacity of the resources that are being asked to control them by 4 or 5 times, which is nonsense, as well as recklessness. We should ask ourselves about our territorial, social and economic model for dealing with this situation so that we do not leave the fire-fighting services with this intractable and unsolvable problem.

Our landscapes urgently need proactive, adaptive, integrative management to enable rural development that is compatible in the medium and long term with biodiversity and ecosystem services. It is clear that unilateral and reactive management in the face of the challenges of global change is neither effective nor intelligent. And inaction is also a decision.

Coinciding with the heat wave, numerous wildfires have started and spread in the Iberian Peninsula, with two fatalities in the province of Zamora.