Víctor Fernández-García
Lecturer in the Department of Engineering and Agricultural Sciences at the University of León
What is the cause of the intensity of these three fires?
“What we are seeing in recent years is the result of a combination of short-term problems and longer-term structural issues. In the short term, the weather conditions in spring (rainy) and summer (dry) are key factors and are closely linked to climate change. But these conditions are affecting a landscape that has been turning into a powder keg across the country for decades (abandonment of crops and land use, the accumulation and persistence of vegetation, the expansion of residential areas into the countryside, and plantations and scrubland coming ever closer to population centres).”
What role does the type of vegetation in these areas play?
“The vegetation in the area plays a decisive role. In terms of its composition, it is vegetation that is quite prone to fire and highly flammable (as is the case across almost the whole country), with a significant number of Spanish stone pine and Aleppo pine forests, or dense areas of scrub. Oak and chestnut groves are slightly less flammable. In any case, much of this vegetation is adapted to burning and catches fire easily in summer. Beyond its composition, the quantity and continuity of this vegetation—which acts as the fuel that feeds the fire—are of great importance.
We will probably hear once again that climate change is the main culprit, but presenting it as the sole cause may serve to sidestep the very issue we can actually act upon, namely the vegetation that feeds the fire; that is, the management of woodland and urban-forest interfaces".
They are affecting the urban-forest interface. How can homes and the surrounding environment be protected?
“The best way to protect homes is to ensure that the fuel (vegetation) and the homes are not too close together. In urban-forest interface areas, regional regulations have moved in this direction. Certain housing developments, buildings and facilities adjoining forest land must have a self-protection plan and maintain a perimeter strip free of dry vegetation, with sparse tree cover. Undeveloped plots, access routes and verges must also be managed.
The problem is that passing regulations and plans does not guarantee their implementation, as many of the areas that need to be kept free of vegetation consist of small private plots with numerous owners and are sometimes derelict, which makes management extremely difficult.”
What can be done to prevent the flames from causing so much damage?
“There is no single magic solution, but one key aspect could be to make greater use of controlled burning in the landscape – the kind of fire we want, ‘good’ fires to combat the outbreak of ‘bad’ fires.
We cannot prevent the next heatwave at local council or regional government level, but we can manage the vegetation, which is what feeds the fire. The aim is not to ‘clear’ the entire woodland, but to work in strategic areas so that, when a fire does arrive, it finds less fuel and can be brought under control without endangering the population. Treating all high-risk areas mechanically would be economically unfeasible, so we must complement traditional prevention work with efficient alternatives such as prescribed burning. We should even consider allowing certain low-risk fires to burn, such as many winter or spring fires, as these burnt areas will act as large firebreaks for a number of years.
It is well established that systematically suppressing all fires creates a false sense of security. If, for decades, there are no fires and no management measures to fulfil their function, fuel accumulates and the continuity of the fire increases. When a fire finally does occur (most likely in summer and under extreme weather conditions), it is much more intense and difficult to control, as there are large amounts of vegetation and, furthermore, landscapes that have not been fragmented by previous fires. This is, to a large extent, what is happening. Naturally, fires that threaten people and property must be extinguished, but such firefighting must be complemented by management measures throughout the rest of the year.”