EUROPE’S SMART SOLUTIONS
FIGHTING FIRE WITH FIRE AND OTHER PREVENTION INITIATIVES
BY LILY MAYERS
There has been a seismic shift in the goals of modern European fire fighting. The aim “is not to eliminate fire, because it is part of the natural dynamics of ecosystems, but to make fires less dangerous,” said Fernando Pulido, director of the Dehesa Research Institute at the University of Extremadura in Badajoz, Spain. “Even with many resources, you cannot do complete fire prevention.”
It’s a consensus many experts in fires and forestry have been trying to disseminate for decades with varying results. They are unified in their prescription for a problem that is growing worse with every increasingly hot year: the only way to avoid destructive mega fires is through thoughtful land management and the controlled reintegration of fires into ecosystems.
There is however no one golden bullet solution, rather the key to long-term mega fire prevention is the use of a mix of tools tailored to a territory’s needs. Across the Iberian Peninsula there are several international, national and local fire smart initiatives being implemented in public and private forests including the use of prescribed burns, extensive livestock grazing, agroforestry land mosaics and the extraction of trees and shrub litter for biomass energy resources. These solution projects break up continuous fuel loads acting as a barrier to stop or slow fire while reducing the flammability of landscapes surrounding vulnerable towns and, in many cases, boosting rural development.
FIGHTING FIRE WITH FIRE
Managing the land means allowing it to burn periodically to avoid untameable wildfires. This can be achieved in a controlled way, by prescribed fires, which reduce accumulated fuel loads, renew soils, increase water availability, create pastoral areas and importantly create firefighting pathways. In Portugal the tool has been used since the 1980s, being one of the first European countries to introduce a structured legal framework for the practice.
The Serra Cabreira mountain range, in the northern Portuguese region of Braga, is a shining example of authorities proactively using prescribed burning to keep vegetation undergrowth under control and extreme wildfires at bay. The aim is to avoid a disaster like the one that occurred in October 2017, near the municipality of Vieira do Minho, where 1600 hectares burned. At the time, the highly flammable carqueja shrub had grown to more than 1.5 meters high and enveloped much of the land. Because of the available fuel, fires raged from the valley to the mountaintop.
Prescribed fires can’t just be lit and left. Before any flame is sparked, fire technicians in Portugal must have a burn plan approved by the National Institute for Nature Conservation and Forests (ICNF). In Spain, prescribed burning is regulated according to the provisions of each autonomous community. After approval, technicians must wait for the ideal on-site weather conditions. The window for burning is typically open for 10 weeks a year between November and March and requires dry but not parched soil, substantial wind speeds, high relative humidity and low temperatures. The specially trained teams control the fire’s progression using drip torches, wind speed and direction, slope, vegetation density and hand-held mops to suppress spot fires.
Nelson Rodrigues, 49, is the Vieira do Minho municipal council’s head fire technician specializing in prescribed burns and fire analysis. In five-year cycles he and his team have been burning parcels of the Cabreira mountain range. He explains the difference between prescribed fires and wildfires is in the severity of the burn.
“A natural fire destroys the vegetation, destroys the soil and then in the next rains the [burned] soil is washed away and only the rocks remain. [With prescribed burns] we are now burning the top part of the vegetation, the plant doesn’t die, the roots don’t die, it remains fixed to the soil and in about a month it will start to grow again.”
Nelson is confident that due to the interventions a mega fire would not be able to develop in the area he controls; it’s a long-term achievement that fills him with pride. “Imagine that we [have] worked on a landscape for a few years and during the next few years there were never big fires. No habitat was destroyed, no type of forest or environment. And it was possible for us to all work together – shepherds, technicians, hunters and farmers.”
Fundamental to the program’s success is that coordination. “We need pasture and the way to have pasture is through fire.” Shepherds traditionally used fire to create clearings for their animals, but in recent decades there has been a shift from traditional fires to authorized burns carried out by technicians. “[Now] it has to be done by technicians, so it is up to us to approach the shepherds, and the simplest expansive empty spaces and overgrown forests that are creeping increasingly closer to populated urban areas. Between 1960 and 2021, Portugal’s rural population decreased to 3.3. million from 5.7 million, or to 33 per cent from 65 per cent of the total population. In Spain in the same period the rural population declined to 8.9 million from 13.2 million. The Spanish community of Extremadura is one of the most evident cases. “[We] have half the population we had in the past, but the target landscape is the same, so you have to work with other tools,” Pulido said.
One such tool, combining multiple land management strategies is mosaic landscapes, also known as fire smart territories. Mega fires can’t easily develop or spread through land that’s cultivated, grazed, surveilled, and managed, making these land mosaics a vital part of wildfire risk reduction. The most effective are called strategic productive firebreaks, which are areas used to grow crops contributing to the bioeconomy while focusing on critical areas of high fire risk.
Pulido conceived the program in 2016 with the University of Extremadura. “In these marginal lands the forest by natural regeneration grows two per cent every year, so you don’t need to plant, you need to manage and drive the forest in the direction you need. This idea that we need trees everywhere here does not work,” he said. The program currently has 102 productive firebreaks across Las Hurdes, Sierra de Gata and the Sierra de San Pedro Occidental including resin extraction, forestry, crop farming and livestock grazing across 6,167 hectares of land, reducing the area’s fire risk by 10 per cent.
Importantly landowners involved in the project, including those redesigning land for fire prevention, are given technical and administrative support to access subsidies and navigate the complicated and time-consuming bureaucracy associated with effective land management. “Here the bureaucracy is reaching somewhat ridiculous and absurd limits,” said farmer Carlos Donoso, 64, who is one of the pioneers of the initiative. He explains, exasperated, that permissions to plant new trees, for example, can take up to two years.
Donoso’s property, Becerril Farm, sits on 80 hectares of land just outside the town of Acebo, Cáceres, and hosts various fruit orchards including apple and persimmon trees and forests of cork oak and chestnut trees. Carlos thinks of his property as a fire smart island in the sea of abandoned pine plantations that encircle it. And he has witnessed the power it can have, “In the great Acebo fire [of 2015], our farm was practically one of the very few in town that did not burn. It is clear: native forest, with livestock and with a little care, acts as a brake.” A break that’s potentially life saving, given the nearest fire station is almost an hour away in Coria.
A positive by-product these fire smart initiatives share is their ability to directly combat land desertification by attracting and holding populations in rural areas. Donoso believes they can help revitalize towns that are emptying and aging. “Some people are coming, but there’s still plenty of room and a lot more people could come,” Donoso said.
He believes for both fire prevention and sustainable land management people must be encouraged to return to rural areas and be helped by administrations to sustain the economic activity that justifies them staying. But ultimately, he says, “Those of us who live here are the ones who must take an active part. In the end it is the local population that has to take control of its own destiny.”
This report was developed with the support of Journalismfund Europe.
Lily Mayers is a cross-platform freelance journalist from Sydney, Australia, based in Madrid, Spain. Mayers’ career began in television and radio news for Australia’s national broadcaster, the ABC. Since moving to Spain in 2020, Mayers’ work has focused on the long-form coverage of world news and current affairs.
Paulo Nunes dos Santos is a freelance photojournalist and reporter covering armed conflict, humanitarian crises, political instability, and social issues worldwide. Nunes dos Santos is a frequent contributor to international publications including The New York Times and Jornal Expresso.
