Two dead, four critically injured, three seriously injured, almost 10,000 evacuated, thousands confined... And, finally, an urgent request for more resources from the EU. Just after nine o'clock last night, the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, confirmed that Spain had requested a module with two larger Canadair firefighting planes, with a capacity of 5,500 liters each. This announcement came two hours after Alberto Núñez-Feijóo called on the government to request resources from Europe in response to the wave of fires, amid criticisms for acting late. For the moment, there is no specification of where they will be sent. Wherever is a priority, Marlaska stated in his interview on the Ser radio station. The most affected areas at the moment are in the northwest of the peninsula. And that is not a surprise.
The fire continues to rage across much of Spain, with León, Zamora, and Ourense as the epicenter of a social and environmental tragedy that has already become history. But they are not the only ones affected. Ten communities are battling the flames under a scenario that continues unabated: villages evacuated or confined by phone alerts, road, train, electricity, and water cuts, homes and livestock burned, and neighbors defending their homes—the luckiest among them, accompanied by UME soldiers, under a warlike symphony of seaplanes and helicopters.
The weather has also sided with the fire. The attempts to extinguish the blazes are taking place in the midst of a second heat wave that is leaving highs of 45 degrees Celsius. The State Meteorological Agency (Aemet) has extended the heat wave until at least Monday, after assuring that, based on observed and forecast data, there is no precedent in Spain for such a warm period between August 1 and 20. It also warns of dry storms that could cause new fires, and is therefore keeping almost the entire map of Spain marked red due to extreme risk until next week.
The more than 200 fires so far in 2025 have already burned an area of 105,106 hectares, according to the latest data collected by the European Forest Fire Information System. More than double the amount burned in the entire previous year, but still far from the 306,555 hectares devastated by the 493 fires in 2022.
In Galicia, the deputy director general of Firefighting for the Xunta, Fernando Veiga, speaks of an anomalous situation caused by a severe drought for more than two months, during which rainfall has been below the 30-year average. But the truth is that Ourense, along with its neighboring Zamora and León, seem to survive each summer under a perpetual fire.
Castilla y León has seen more than 195,000 hectares of land burned in the last decade due to 13,600 fires. 2022 was especially dramatic for Zamora, where 6% of the province burned. But Ourense bore the brunt. The local motto,"Land of Spark," due to the abundance of sharpeners in the 20th century, seems like a bad joke in the 21st century. Since 2015, it has accounted for more than half of the hectares burned in all of Galicia. And it is established as the hardest hit province so far this century, with more than 43,000 fires and 230,000 hectares burned. In A Mezquita, where a nursing home for 56 elderly people had to be evacuated, the mayor, Rafael Pérez, of the BNG (National Liberation Front), sent a letter of thanks to the residents, in which he lamented the recurrence: The flames, once again, devoured a large part of the territory. Surrounded by fire. Cornered. That's how we felt. Added to this was the helplessness, but also the dedication of the residents. With what they had on them. With what was at hand. They were once again the heroes.
To explain why these provinces seem to survive under an eternal fire, we don't even need to resort to climate change, because they have been burning since long before the debate began. Summers are always dry and hot, and the fuel is highly desirable. Almost the entire territory is covered with scrubland, bushes, and especially species that burn easily and regenerate quickly, such as eucalyptus and pine trees. Extinguishing experts speak of sixth-generation fires or megafires, and point to climate change and human action as responsible for their ignition, but they rarely talk about the fuel, says Fernando Ojeda, professor of Biology at the University of Cádiz, in statements to the Science Media Centre (SMC). They talk about scrubland or vegetation in general, when it is proven that not all forests burn equally. Since the mid-20th century, the natural landscape of the Iberian Peninsula, especially its western half, has been extensively afforested with pine and eucalyptus plantations. These afforestations are largely responsible for the severity and spread of these large fires. The idea that fires are extinguished in winter by clearing and mooring forests should focus on forest plantations, not natural habitats.
The mountainous terrain and narrow valleys of these provinces also favor winds that always favor fire. There are also the difficulties of unifying policies in a rural area divided into tiny parcels. Many of the fires in Galicia are not accidental, but rather caused by negligence in agricultural burning and conflicts over pastures or urban development. Added to all this is rural abandonment. Fewer people mean less grazing land and less clearing of forests.
