Of those chips, these ashes

The arrival of industrialization in Spain marked the mass exodus from the rural world to the cities in the 60s and 70s. This migration took place mainly to large urban centers such as Madrid, Barcelona, Bilbao or Valencia, not to mention many other provincial capitals. This population movement was based on the premises of a better work and life, combined with aspirations for those generations that lived on hard work in the fields.

The death blow to what is currently known as Vacated Spain began with the second wave of emigration and the opening of the Franco regime to international tourism, supported by the United States. The population that made up the small inland villages migrated to coastal areas in need of labor and more interesting salaries, leaving behind the care of the countryside and traditional rural activities.

In the mountains and mountainous areas of our territory, where agriculture and livestock have been the traditional pillar of livelihood and productivity, the population was forced to migrate during certain periods of the year in search of other income. In this way, they could seek the economic support of their families in the successive annual olive campaigns, grape harvest, or harvest, among many other crops, becoming the optimal breeding ground for the above-mentioned incipient depopulation.

The current circumstances cannot be explained without the history and land uses that have occurred on these systems over time, these being some of the keys to explaining the disastrous situation in which the country finds itself in relation to forest fires. You could say that “of those chips, these ashes”.

Depopulation causes the abandonment of crops that fragmented the landscape and vegetation, interrupting the expansion of the forest and generating biodiversity as well as acting as natural firewalls. All of this creates the opening of a window of opportunity for an attack on the fire after modifying the initial conditions of the fire.

In the same way, prioritizing intensive livestock over extensive livestock reduced the livestock herd of this last model, so that the desired clearing of the forest by grazing was reduced and the vegetation load intensified.

Forestry that formerly removed a large part of the plant load, such as the collection of firewood, the use of wood and resin, have disappeared. This loss is caused by the profitability of resins and wood, and today they are relegated to those prepared mountains, with good access and easy to work with, or because of the convenience (firewood) due to the proliferation of gas, hydrocarbon or electric heating installations. Turning the pellet into a loophole of returning to vegetable fuel, only profitable under certain conditions.

These circumstances mean that Spanish forests in general, and Mediterranean forests in particular, due to their adaptation and need for fire for their regeneration, become a veritable tinderbox.

Adding fuel to the fire, never better said, we are in a process of climate change that generates increased water stress on vegetation, which decreases the percentage of water present in its structures. Periods of extreme temperatures are becoming longer and linked to lower humidity levels in air, turning the forest into an energy source that is now even more available.

To all this conglomerate, another very influential factor, such as second homes inside or surrounded by the mountain. Idyllic homes in a natural environment, a paradise for the human being that can turn into total hell. The urban-forest interface becomes a problem of civil protection, prioritizing the defense of people and property, of course, deriving personnel from extinction to this defense.

It is true that there are means and personnel to extinguish these fires, allowing them to be put out quickly. 98% of these fires become attacks or fires that consume only a few hectares, while 2% of fires that are not stopped that quickly. These episodes of fire, fueled by the now extensive heat waves caused by climate change that we have been facing, become GIFs (Great Forest Fires). As Marc Castellnou, a global eminence in the analysis and behavior of forest fires, said, these fires are already of the 6th generation, they are already monsters, entities with their own lives that generate their own favorable climatic conditions to persist and with the impossibility of predicting what they will do.

Worst of all, the oblivion that occurs after the period is over, as no one remembers until the time for the next wave, with the exception of those affected.

The paradigm shift comes from not seeing the forest as a garden, it does not mean that it is not managed but rather the way to manage it. The prescribed burns, the controlled fire, the cleaning of the forest at the right time to create zones of rupture of continuity, the investment in forest management, the application of preventive forestry, the creation of jobs in rural environments, information, training and environmental education, become the tools we have to prevent these major fires from being such.

Images, sources:

Economic emigration to Europe
Source https://www.cervantesvirtual.com/obra-visor/exiliados-y-emigrados-19391999–0/html/ffdf03e4-82b1-11df-acc7-002185ce6064_8.html

Comparison of the maritime façade of Albufereta in 1945 and 1973 (Photo: Sánchez, Municipal Historical Archive of Alicante).
Source: Origins and tourism development in Alicante: from summer to mass tourism
CANELOBRE Magazine, published by the Juan Gil-Albert Institute of Culture of Alicante, Autonomous Organism of the Provincial Council of Alicante, Number 66, Summer 2016