The prolonged drought and high temperatures are the factors taken into account by the State Coordination and Management Committee of the State Forest Fire Plan to bring forward the state campaign against forest fires, which this year 2024 will begin on 1 June.

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Government brings forward state campaign against forest fires

The Government has decided to bring forward the start of the state campaign against forest fires for the second consecutive year and 2024 will begin on 1 June due to the current situation that combines significantly high temperatures and prolonged drought.

The decision was taken on Tuesday 7 May by the State Coordination and Management Committee (CECOD) of the State Forest Fire Plan, chaired by the Undersecretary of the Ministry of the Interior, Susana Crisóstomo. For her part, the Director General of Civil Protection and Emergencies, Virginia Barcones, has already communicated the advance of the summer campaign against forest fires to the Autonomous Communities, which are responsible for forestry matters, so that they can adapt their respective mechanisms and adopt the necessary preventive measures.

This advance “allows us to anticipate and be more prepared so that, if the weather conditions continue to become more complicated, we can provide a more effective response to the possibility of forest fires in different areas of the territory”, explained Crisóstomo.

For her part, the Director General for Biodiversity, Forests and Desertification of the Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (MITECO), María Jesús Rodríguez de Sancho, stressed the importance of prevention and anticipation in the face of this type of episode which, due to the climatic emergency and the drought situation that our country is going through, are occurring with increasing frequency and intensity. “Large fires of more than 500 hectares are increasingly affecting larger areas. Water stress and high temperatures make it increasingly difficult to deal with them, which is why it is so important to anticipate them,” he said.

The CECOD meeting prepared and activated the entire state fire-fighting system. This system includes, among others, the Forest Fire Reinforcement Brigades (BRIF) and the MITECO’s fleet of large-capacity seaplanes, which is operated by the 43rd Air and Space Army Group, and the Ministry of Defence’s Military Emergency Unit, as well as the systems organised by the National Police and the Civil Guard for each specific fire. These state resources are complementary to the arrangements organised by the Autonomous Communities.

The CECOD meeting was attended by representatives of the various state bodies involved in the fire-fighting campaign. The MITECO was represented by members of the Directorate General for Biodiversity, Forests and Desertification and the State Meteorological Agency (AEMET). Staff from the Directorate General of Defence Policy and the Military Emergency Unit of the Ministry of Defence and the Department of National Security of the Presidency of the Government also took part.

Assessment of the 2023 fire-fighting campaign
The CECOD also took stock of the 2023 firefighting campaign, a year characterised by the prominence of large forest fires, known as those that devastate areas of more than 500 hectares, of which a total of 19 were recorded.

The meteorological situation had a direct correlation with the development of large fires in 2023. Precisely, this Wednesday AEMET has published the climatic balance of April. Last month was very warm in peninsular Spain as a whole, with an average temperature of 13.2 ºC, a value 1.3 ºC higher than the average for the 1991-2020 reference period. It was the sixth warmest April in the historical series, which began in 1961, and the fifth warmest in the 21st century.

In addition, according to provisional data from the General Forest Fire Statistics, in 2023 there were more than 7,700 fires with a total affected area of 89,068.33 hectares. The total number of fires was 22 per cent lower than the average value of the last decade.

According to data from the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS), obtained through the Copernicus programme, Spain ranks third in terms of forest area affected, preceded by Greece (174,773 hectares) and Italy (97,595 ha). The relative area concerning the country’s total is 0.17 per cent, the fifth most affected country after Greece (1.32) and Portugal (0.40), Cyprus (0.34) and Italy (0.32).

Of the 378 fires reported to the National Centre for Monitoring and Coordination of Emergencies (CENEM), the main civil protection consequence was the preventive evacuation of more than 28,150 people, making the 2023 campaign the third-highest number of people evacuated since records began.

On the other hand, one person died in Nuñomoral (Cáceres) at the beginning of 2023 in a fire caused by stubble burning. At least 74 people (26 of whom were firefighters) had to be treated by medical teams.