‘The worst possible combination’: what has caused Spain’s deadly wildfires? | Spain

A grim picture of the fallout emerges as firefighters try to extinguish the flames sweeping across southern Spain and doctors treat the injured.

At least 12 people died in the rapidly spreading inferno that ripped through Almería on Thursday, with many trapped in cars trying to escape the fire that scorched 3,800 hectares (9,390 acres). Stunned officials said eight people were injured and the condition of 23 was undisclosed.

But the dozen confirmed deaths in Andalusia are likely to represent only a fraction of the deaths from fires. Far more lethal than the flames is the thick black smoke they spew into the air (on a scale that is difficult for even the scientists who study it to understand).

Lung-damaging pollution from fires kills 1.53 million people each year. to work A separate study from 2024 found that a bad season in a single country like Canada in 2023 could lead to tens of thousands of deaths worldwide. Strong winds carry toxic particles across oceans into homes and lungs.

When record-breaking wildfires burned the Iberian peninsula last year, killing eight people in Spain and six in Portugal, they produced so much toxic smoke that 2,000 people died prematurely, according to one report. to work It was published as a preprint last month.

It’s not a given that so many people will die. Fossil fuel pollution and land mismanagement set the stage for increasingly severe fires in Southern Europe, and the coming decades longer fire season It burns more powerfully and covers a larger area.

Reports suggest that Thursday’s fire may have been caused by a downed power line. This summer’s fires are spreading quickly because a hot summer turns vegetation into dangerous fuel, followed by a wet winter and spring to help plants grow.

“The Los Gallardos bushfire in Almería appears to be facing the worst possible combination: an flashpoint across a large landscape of extremely dry vegetation, strong winds and an unprepared community nearby,” said fire scientist Guillermo Rein of Imperial College London. “These conditions caused flames to spread extremely quickly into homes, overwhelming firefighters working under extraordinarily difficult conditions. Recent heat waves had already dried out the landscape, turning vegetation into highly flammable fuel.”

Western Europe is experiencing its third heatwave in two months, and this year’s fires are already among the deadliest in Spanish history. Data published on Tuesday by the European Forest Fire Information System shows twice as much area has burned as usual for this time of year, the number of fires has tripled and emissions are above average. Last year, many fires broke out simultaneously, disrupting firefighting efforts and causing small fires to turn into large fires.

The steep terrain of the valley-filled Sierra de Bédar is conducive to the rapid spread of wildfires, with temperatures in the region reaching around 42°C after several consecutive days of above 35°C, scientists said. “In this region, just a few weeks of no rain in the summer is enough for fine fuels to reach very high flammability levels,” said Gustavo Saiz, a senior scientist at the National Institute of Agriculture and Food Research and Technology.

Along with rising temperatures, pitting in rural Spain has also alarmed fire experts as the population ages and young people leave farms to find work in cities. The resulting overgrowth of vegetation—along with the political tendency to suppress fires rather than prevent them—encouraged large fuel accumulations that made large fires more likely.

“The inertia of the two main processes that brought us to the current situation – land abandonment and climate change – is huge,” said Juan Picos, a forest fire scientist at the University of Vigo. “Even if we begin to implement aggressive measures immediately, conditions will likely continue to deteriorate for some time before any significant improvement emerges.”

He likened the shock of increasingly “unprecedented” bushfires to being like someone climbing a mountain and being surprised each day to see the fire reach a new height. “If they keep climbing, it’s almost certain they’ll say the same thing tomorrow.”