Summer has started in the worst way: with extreme temperatures and one fire after anotherIt is the beginning of the season with the greatest impact of fire of the last three decadesBut we were warned, and luckily the reservoirs are full. This, the more it goes on, the more it manifests itself in phenomena that were previously unusual, such as the dense pyrocumulus cloud that claimed the lives of two farmers living in Agramunt. Urban developments in the middle of nowhere—poorly protected, with deficient services, poorly connected—and forest management has become little or not at all profitable. Therefore, effective forest protection is essential. This is what expert Miquel Rafa talks about today in this newspaper..
In recent years, as a political and public reaction to the tragedy of forest and agricultural fires, the fire department has indeed been improved, providing it with more technical and human resources. However, with the power and speed of the latest generation of fires, the work of fire watchers has become heroic but at the same time consciously limited. Often, it's about avoiding the worst: the loss of human life and the damage to inhabited areas. And the firefighters themselves insist that the key lies in prevention rather than in responding once the flames are already burning. We saw this especially in the fire in Els Ports Natural Park, an area of difficult access. And when the problem isn't the topography, it's the wind or the temperature. Or all of them.
The climate context suggests that risk situations will increase. Just this Tuesday, two reports were released that place Catalonia as a critical region in terms of global warming: we are at ground zero for extreme heat, ahead of areas such as New Delhi, Tokyo, and Athens. And in the count of heat-related deaths in major European cities since the beginning of summer, Barcelona is in second place, behind Milan and ahead of Paris. Therefore, it's no good relying on the weather to respect us. Just as we must work to ensure the water supply in the coming years by building the necessary infrastructure, we also need to make progress in fire prevention with more effective management of forests and rural areas as a whole. And we must strongly influence the awareness of a predominantly urban population that, therefore, is unaware of the natural reality, with all its vital and economic complexity.
