Greenpeace Calls for Billion-Euro Investment in Forest Fire Prevention

Greenpeace has called for an annual investment of around one billion euros for measures to prevent forest fires, given an evolution towards increasingly severe episodes. So far this year, more than 76% of the area affected by fires has been concentrated in 42 major forest fires, while last year only 0.77% of the fires was responsible for 86% of the burned area. The organization believes that reducing ignitions is only one part of prevention, which must also focus on managing the territory to limit the spread of flames through silvicultural treatments, discontinuities in vegetation, and the maintenance of agroforestry mosaics. Spain has almost 29 million hectares of forest land, but only 27.8% of that surface has management plans. Greenpeace estimates that large fires have cost between 2 and 3.8 billion euros this year, not including damage to infrastructure, economic losses, compensation, or ecosystem degradation. Facing this bill, Greenpeace argues that for every euro invested in prevention, up to 100 euros in extinction costs can be avoided.