Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez on Monday said Spain’s preparation for this summer’s deadly wildfires, which burned a record amount of territory, was “clearly insufficient”.
Four people died and thousands were evacuated in the country as a heatwave baked southern Europe last month, sparking a blame game between the Socialist government and the conservative opposition Popular Party (PP).
The Socialists say the PP failed to implement effective fire prevention policies in the regions it governs and played down climate change.
The PP blames the fires on arson and accuses the central government of withholding resources, including enough military support.
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“We have had a clearly insufficient fire prevention policy,” Sánchez said as he presented a “national pact against the climate emergency” in Madrid, citing a lack of firefighters, forest rangers and prediction tools.
These violent fires “are not extinguished in summer, they are put out in winter, in autumn, working every day of the year” to avoid emergencies during searing summer temperatures, Sánchez said.
The Socialist leader also highlighted “inadequate” land management that led to a “countryside full of biomass and without fire breaks”, as well as “obsolete infrastructure”.
The climate emergency was also to blame, Sánchez added, as scientists have long warned that human-driven global warming is increasing the length, frequency and intensity of episodes of extreme heat that fuel wildfires.
Wildfires in Spain have destroyed hundreds of thousands of hectares this year, mostly in August, according to the European Forest Fire Information System, surpassing the previous high of 306,000 hectares (756,000 acres) set in 2022 and marking a new annual record since reporting began in 2006.
