Thursday, March 28

The Government will declare the territories affected by the great fires a catastrophic zone

The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, visited on Monday the areas affected by the Bejís fire in Castellón, which has already been considered stabilized after having devastated 19,000 hectares and having affected a perimeter of 140 kilometers.

The worst year in burned area in almost three decades: this is how active fires evolve in Spain

Know more

Together with the president of the Generalitat Valenciana, Sánchez announced that the Council of Ministers will approve this Tuesday the declaration of areas seriously affected by civil protection emergencies (catastrophic zone) for all the large fires that have occurred this year in Spain.

The chief executive has highlighted that this year 223,000 hectares have burned in Spain, while last year there were 51,000. In 2012, the worst record to date, 116,000 hectares were affected.

“We are facing the warmest summer since there are records, that is, since 1961, and the forecast is that the next ones will be even warmer. The climate emergency is more real than ever and we must fight against it in decision-making from all areas”, said Sánchez, who had words of thanks for all the security forces and personnel who have participated in the work of extinction.

A heat wave, the one in mid-June, caused the devastation to take a very big jump. The Ecological Transition statistics went from 25,000 to 73,000 hectares. Almost triple. Then came the next July 2022 heat wave and its fiery sweep.

The proliferation of large forest fires, sometimes impossible to extinguish, is one of the consequences, warned for a long time, of the alteration of the climate that has generated the greenhouse effect of human gas emissions in the atmosphere.



www.eldiario.es