Wildfires in Spain signal growing climate risks for Europe, expert warns

MADRID - The devastating wildfires sweeping across Spain this summer should serve as a warning to the rest of Europe about the rising dangers of climate change, a Barcelona-based climatologist said on Wednesday.

"This is a warning to countries that have traditionally enjoyed temperate, cool summers... because these conditions of intense heat will increase in latitude and will reach these countries," Javier Martin-Vide, climatologist and professor of physical geography at the University of Barcelona, told Xinhua.

According to Thursday's update from the European Forest Fire Information System, wildfires have scorched 403,171 hectares of land in Spain so far this year. Around 350,000 hectares were destroyed in just the past two weeks, coinciding with a severe heat wave that began in early August.

Martin-Vide emphasized that climate models point to worsening conditions in the coming decades. "Adaptation is key to reducing the risk," he said, noting that temperatures exceeding 40 degrees Celsius in central and northern Europe will pose serious challenges to societies less accustomed to extreme heat.

He called for stronger prevention measures and better landscape management, highlighting the effects of rural depopulation. "The woods are not as clean as in the past, when there were cattle, sheep, goats grazing and eating the vegetation that now acts as the fuel that starts a forest fire," he explained.

The climatologist urged innovative strategies, including the creation of "mosaic landscapes with forest areas interspersed with cultivated fields", to make land more defensible against blazes.

He also pointed to adaptation already underway in agriculture, as olive and wine producers move production to higher altitudes, in search of more favorable climatic conditions to maintain both quality and output.

Martin-Vide welcomed the Spanish government's plan to establish a nationwide pact on fire prevention, calling it "very necessary".

Spain is enduring its worst summer for wildfires this century, with more than 20 major blazes still burning, mainly in the northwestern provinces of Orense, Zamora and Leon. The interior ministry said over 33,000 people have been evacuated, while four people, including three firefighters, have died.