Sad news occupy the front pages of all newspapers these days. In less than a month, the flames of several fires have devastated more than 60,000 hectares in Zamora province. To give you an idea: the burned area 29 times larger than the one covering La Palma volcano. And it’s four times larger than the entire island itself. The fire at Losacio is already the largest in Spanish history and the fastest growing in the history of the planet since records were kept.

numbers. They are destructive. The European Copernicus program estimates that 36,000 hectares will burn in the Losacio fire in Zamora alone. It’s a disaster that’s even worse if you add in almost 25,000 of the fire. Sierra de la Culebra in the same region. A record 34,290 people were burned in the fire that ravaged Minas de Riotinto (Huelva) in 2004.

Dance in size. For weeks, the dancing of the figures was constant. Environment Minister Juan Carlos Suárez-Quiñones reported that the Losacio fire would amount to “more than 20,000 hectares”. Later on, The official Twitter account of Environment, Nature Castilla y León, with 36,000 hectares devastated, repeated the Copernicus measurement. A chaos of numbers highlighting the lack of precision in calculations in case of fire.

🗺️ Flat with affected surface inside #CyL for him #IFLosacio

🔥 35,960 ha burned

🔸 #IFLosacio | Level 2
⬆️ Level 2 on July 17

Font: @KopernikEMS pic.twitter.com/8xX5Q6Vvbh

– Nature Castilla y Leon (@naturalezacyl) 21 July 2022

fastest fire. It destroyed 10,000 hectares in 4 hours. That makes it the fastest in history. Fueled by the mountains and high temperatures, it’s “an unquenchable fire,” according to firefighters in the area. Apparently, lightning was responsible for such a disaster. Up to 35 fires (many of which were nearly extinguished) further complicated the situation with winds blowing at 40 kilometers per hour. Two people lost their lives in an “unprecedented” incident in the region.

Seven of the ten hectares burned are in Zamora. 73% of the burned land in our country is in that region. So far in 2022, the area burned by forest fires in Spain has reached 81,866 hectares. According to Copernicus, more than 60,000 hectares of this brutal number come from two major fires at Zamora. A disaster of biblical proportions.

Worst year in the last thirty years in the flattened area. The perfect trigger for heatwaves big forest fires. Two events in Spain in June and July prove this. So far this year, satellite data shows that 200,000 hectares have been destroyed. The June heat wave doubled the damage: The Ecological Transition figure increased from 25,000 hectares to 73,000 hectares. Almost triple. Then the July heat wave came and we are where we are now.

Suffice it to say that European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS) This marks 2022 as the worst fire season since the system was launched in 2000.

climate change. The cause of the increased meteorological fire risk is extreme weather conditions. Whether it’s high temperatures, drought or wind, these exceptional seasons produce more devastating fires. And when you consider that heat waves are becoming much more widespread and intense, we already know what the future will hold. And yes, climate change is produced by the human footprint.

High intensity fires. The sheer scale of what happened in Zamora, Cáceres or Lugo points to a growing problem in Spain in recent years. As discussed in this eldiario.es analysis, we are experiencing an explosion of massive forest fires (over 500 hectares). So, little but devastating. And the biggest downside is that they are more spread out now. According to the data, each major fire burns nearly twice as many mountains on average as it did 30 years ago.

Image: GTRES