‘A FLAME crosses a border without asking for permission’: the chief of the fire brigade in Caceres, Extremadura, has warned of wildfires in the years to come as a result of climate change.
In an interview with Europa Press TV, firefighter chief of Extremadura’s Caceres, Ferran Garcia, said that fires such as the one in Jarilla, Caceres, will eventually arrive in Catalunya, as well as other regions of Spain, as a result of climate change.
Garcia added that the fires are at temperatures of 1,000C, pointing out that these temperatures are too hot to even get near to put them out. ‘The fire doesn’t let you come close: now you can’t just go and give it some water and then turn your back on it.’
Temperatures of 1,000C have been determined in the head (running edge) of the fires.
‘What this leads us to ask is where the fire is going to increase in intensity, because it finds a field, a road, a village, a slope [etcetera] where it is easier for it to spread. The important thing is to recognise these trigger points to be able to put measures in place before it arrives so that [we] are already there.’
Garcia called for further learning methods and for an increased understanding in how fires develop, saying ‘we have to come together to learn about fires’, highlighting how France has ‘also had terrible fires this year.’
‘We should be on site to learn: it cannot be that our learning only comes from what happens in Catalunya. Firefighter personnel is a finite resource, but what we can do is share. Firefighters from Extremadura will have to be here when the fires such as what we have had in Jarilla inevitably come to Catalunya, because at the end of the day having more people means the area is safer and better protected.’
He added that ‘the fire which we have had in Jarilla will no doubt come to Catalunya: I don’t know if this year or next year but it will come. Climate change brings us fires of this kind.’
Jarilla has seen a slew of devastating wildfires this summer, across multiple areas in the region.
Garcia’s warning echoes the future threat of wildfires to Catalunya, posing as a severe warning regarding Spain’s future amongst climate change and the increasing intensity of wildfires.
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