During the past weekend it was known that Las Médulas, a historic gold-mining site (located in León, Spain) and a World Heritage Site as per UNESCO‘s designation, was burning. Nearby in the North-west of the country, in Galicia, several Great Fires have been registered in the past few weeks alone, in both late July and early August. Extremely high temperatures due to the current heat wave, strong wind, climate change and, sadly, human agency (arson), are behind this year’s catastrophe.
While forest fires pop up in the Spanish map every year, 2025 has been especially fierce so far, and we’re not even halfway through the peak month of August. The spring saw one Great Forest Fire (GIF by its Spanish acronym), whereas in the seven weeks of summertime the number grew rapidly and horribly to a total of 22, 10 in the first 11 days of the ongoing month alone, as reported by ElDiario. A forest fire is considered a GIF when it surpasses the 500 scorched hectares.
According to the same source, even though the total of fires registered in the country a year went down compared to two decades ago, the average of GIF steadily grew to 23 annually, a number that 2025 is about to see, with almost the whole peninsula at risk of forest fire. Besides Galicia and Castilla-León, other GIF-impacted regions include Andalucía, Extremadura, Catalonia, and Castilla-La Mancha, with thousands of people evacuated and fields, crops, and forests lost forever.
With the climate crisis offering the best ingredients for devastating, rapidly-spreading fire, more measures and awareness must be put in place to prevent another black summer from happening.
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