The Director General of Civil Protection and Emergencies, Virginia Barcones, today called at a press conference for the reinforcement of the Civil Protection system and called for the need to pay attention to the true and"only enemy" - fire - which continues to maintain 14 active fires at emergency level 2, with outbreaks in the provinces of Zamora, León, Orense and Asturias."When this is over, it will be the time when each of us will have to explain how we have done things with objective data, and I also believe that, when this is over, we will have to do a deep and honest reflection to reinforce the Civil Protection system," she stated.

These intense fires of the last 15 days have been, in the words of Barcones,"the worst catastrophe in Spain, Europe and recent history, an episode of unprecedented fires." This was stated on Monday at the press conference following the meeting of the State Coordination Committee (CECOD) against fires, which was chaired by the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska.

As Barcones explained, the National Civil Protection System"is made up of local authorities, autonomous communities, the Government of Spain, volunteers and collaborators," who, ultimately, will have to"see how we can strengthen our whole." A group of administrations "called to work together" because "making other types of assessments, debates, and reflections that won't save the Spanish people in the short term."

"Beyond the cause, what is clear is that we are facing something new and we have to prepare to face something new," he stressed.

At a press conference, she avoided further fueling the political debate. When asked about the alleged request by the PP to the Government for twice as many aerial firefighting resources as the European Union has at its disposal, Barcones stated that she had"no desire to generate any kind of debate again" since "we have enough to do with doing everything possible to put out the fires as quickly as possible." She also explained that "the reality is unique and that is that the European mechanism for this fire campaign has 26 aerial resources as its own resources, two of which are provided by Spain."