The area of forest fires has been decreasing for decades. Unlike the eastern Mediterranean, Spain has been spared this summer as well. Prevention – and luck – play a major role.
It is always luck too. Almost 5500 forest fires broke out in Spain by the end of July this year, an average of almost 1400 fewer than in the same seven months of the past ten years. 40,000 hectares of forest and scrubland have been burned, 10,000 hectares less than the decade average. A reasonably good forest fire year. But that can change quickly: The country is currently experiencing the first heat wave of the year with temperatures above 40 degrees, and fire loves heat. We’ll see what’s to come.
It is more than luck: for decades, the forest area burned annually in Spain has tended to decrease. In the 1980s, according to figures from the Spanish government, it was an average of 236,000 hectares per year, in the 1990s 159,000 hectares, in the 2000s 114,000 hectares, in the 2010s 96,000 hectares. 96,000 hectares are a little more than the area of Berlin, so still a lot. But the constant decline shows that man is not powerless in the face of fire.
“Forest fires are a polyhedral problem,” says Miguel Ángel Soto, forest expert from Greenpeace Spain. In other words: a problem with many sides that does not allow for simple explanations. But when Soto is asked what Spain has done right in the past few decades, he highlights one thing: “The criminal law reform of 1995. Since then, forest fire has been a crime.” At about the same time, a new land law came into force which prohibits the construction of new settlements on burned forest areas for 30 years. And shortly afterwards, a public prosecutor specializing in environmental crimes was established that did not exist before.
The huge forest fires that Spain experienced again and again between 1978 and 1995 had a wide variety of causes then as now, but one of them was deliberate slash and burn to gain building land. The phenomenon no longer exists today. The cultura del fuego – the “fire culture” – has not yet been completely eradicated, but has been significantly reduced: the habit of burning garden waste or burning a small piece of land in order to clear it of bushes. Especially in Galicia, where it burns particularly often, many rural residents have not yet been able to get used to it.
Nevertheless, the legal reforms of the nineties were also accompanied by a change in mentality: the increasing awareness of how easily a small carelessness – a flicked cigarette, an afternoon barbecue in the country, fireworks during the summer village festival – can trigger a major catastrophe. Miguel Ángel Soto remembers one of the most destructive fires in recent years, triggered by the flying sparks during the installation of solar modules by two private individuals in the Valencia area. Inattention remains a major cause of forest fires.
Most fires remain small fires. Almost two thirds of the 5500 forest fires so far this year covered less than one hectare, which is due to better early warning and communication systems. Because Spain is a country that burns a lot, it has also learned a lot about fire. “We have a great deal of know-how about fire prevention and fighting,” says Greenpeace expert Soto. Whereby prevention is more important than control. “When you have such big fires as you do now in Greece and Turkey, you often have no choice but to wait for the weather to change.” Leads to cuts during the severe recession following the 2008 housing crash. There is always room for improvement.
What Soto and all the experts insist on is improved forest management. There is still a lot to be done. So that the coming heat waves, which will almost certainly be hotter and drier than this year, will not bring back the catastrophes of past decades.
