By Lily Mayers and Paulo Nunes dos Santos
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.
[This is an edited extract of an article in Wildfire Magazine. Click here for the full article.]
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.”
[This is an edited extract of an article in Wildfire Magazine. Click here for the full article.]
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.
