Living with fire, or the need to adapt to the new scenario of forest fires within the framework of climate change.

By Ferran Dalmau – Rovira. Forestry Engineer. Emergencies and Civil Protection Expert. Expert to the Forest Fire Helicopter Brigade. Director of Medi XXI GSA

The first serious heatwave of the year. The first mass outbreak of simultaneous forest fires (several incidents at the same time, stretching the Emergency Services). The media goes into a frenzy and, for a few days, the focus, with varying degrees of success, is on “the problem of forest fires”. Journalists at the scene of the fire in search of a spectacle, and not always with the rigour and depth that a complex problem requires. We are ruled by time and everything should be for yesterday. With the first newsworthy fires of the summer season, public opinion is alerted and, for a few days, becomes conscious of the risk. It is triggered. Then, it all evaporates (as soon as it rains) and is forgotten. Waiting for the heat to return. And so it is, every year as if we were living in an eternal groundhog day. The real problem is that forest fires are changing. For the worse. In fact, they started in the winter (deseasonalising the risk) and they are “just” a symptom of a much more serious disease: the way in which the urban world has neglected rural and peri-urban spaces, climate change, depopulation and rural exodus.

Each time a farm or crop field, that has been producing goods and services for society for centuries, is abandoned, the fire gets closer to populated areas. The old safety belt (cultivated areas) that surrounded populated areas has become unfastened. And we are going more and more quickly each day. If measures are not taken, you can imagine the outcome.

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