Spain is devastated by forest fires

The European Information System on Forest Fires (Effis, for its acronym in English) reported this Wednesday that the forest fires registered in Spain, since the beginning of this year, have left 193,247 hectares devastated.

The Effis detailed that, so far this year, Spain has exceeded the figures for 2012, when a record of almost 190,000 hectares burned was reported.

Based on data collected from the satellites of the European Union's Earth Observation Program Copernicus, the entity specified that the flames have affected four times more areas than the average registered at the beginning of July between the years 2006 and 2021.

For its part, the Ministry of Ecological Transition (Miteco) indicated that in Spain about 2.3 million burned surfaces have been reported between 2001 and 2021.

According to Effis, since 2006, the second year with the worst record of affected area was 2017, when 130,920 hectares were reported devastated.

For its part, the National Information Coordination Center on Forest Fires (Ccinif) has compiled the forest fires that most affected the country, with burned areas exceeding 500 hectares.

Among them are those that occurred in the Riotinto mines, located between Seville and Huelva in 2004; from Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and Santa Cruz de Tenerife in 2007; of Cortes de Pallás and Andilla in the Valencian Community in 2012; of Ourense, Pontevedra and Léon in 2017, and the one that affected five towns in Ávila in 2020.

The General Directorate of Civil Protection and Emergencies of the Spanish Ministry of the Interior reports that about 95 percent of forest fires start due to negligence of people, for which it has requested greater precaution and the adoption of protective measures.

Forest fires in the rest of Europe

The Effis also warned that the areas lost to forest fires in the summer have tripled in the last 15 years, with fires in areas of Hungary, Austria and Slovakia, where they did not usually occur.

The instance calculates that Romania is one of the most affected countries with 149,264 hectares burned for the current time of year; Austria multiplies the average by 90, as well as Hungary and Slovakia.

However, countries such as Greece and Ireland have reported a below-average area loss compared to 2021. The Czech Republic, Finland, Estonia and Lithuania have so far not recorded fires due to the heat wave.

On the other hand, the Global Forest Fire Information System (GWIS) reports that Ukraine, Portugal and Moldova lead the historical average of the largest hectares burned in recent years, in relation to the total area of ​​the country.

Faced with climate change, the experts of the entities consider that its effects may affect new forest fires in the coming years, which will be more extensive, intense and dangerous.