Sánchez warns that the fire situation "continues to be complex"

MadridDouble message from Pedro Sánchez from the advanced command post of the fire ravaging the Community of Madrid and which has burned almost 10,000 hectares. The Spanish president warned that the situation “remains complex” because, although temperatures have dropped, it is not known “what the evolution and intensity of the winds will be” in the coming hours, but at the same time he has not ruled out that, during the weekend, there will be a “window of opportunity” to “fight the fire and protect lives and population centers”. He verbalized this after it was reported that, during the night, both the Madrid fire and the Ávila fire – which has burned between 13,000 and 15,000 hectares – have remained out of control despite the efforts of the firefighters.

In line with what Sánchez announced, he emphasized that, following the declaration of national emergency, it is now the Spanish government that “leads the response” to the two fronts, which “become a single fire” and, therefore, have “a unified operational response system”. “Our priority is to safeguard lives and defend population centers,” he proclaimed.

Furthermore, as he has done in recent days, the Spanish president has once again alluded to the climate emergency: “It is increasingly worsening and exceeding many scientific forecasts, and this requires increasing capacities in response and in prevention and awareness tasks for citizens and public institutions”. In fact, at this point, with this hope in administrations, Sánchez has sent an implicit message to the pacts of the PP and Vox that question the effects of climate change: “It is very important that all public administrations heed science,” he said. Finally, he reiterated the call to “make possible” a state pact against the climate emergency.

A hearing without Ayuso

Pedro Sánchez has also wanted to emphasize the “coordination, agility and effectiveness” that is occurring in the response to the fires by all public administrations, which “are making available all the resources at their disposal” to facilitate the logistics against the fires. Ten autonomous communities have sent aid and four seaplanes from Greece and Italy are also expected to arrive, along with a hundred units from the Portuguese army.

He said all this from Cenicientos, where the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, and the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, have also traveled. However, the Spanish president did not share the appearance with the Madrid leader, unlike what happened in the other two fires he has visited in the last fifteen days, when he shared a microphone with the Andalusian Juanma Moreno Bonilla and the Castilian-La Mancha Emiliano García-Page.

The Madrid president appeared two hours later to ask for ‘understanding and patience’ in the face of an ‘unprecedented and never-before-seen situation’ that could lead to ‘much worse situations’ in the coming hours. She boasted that “all the media” in Madrid are working “without rest” and celebrated that “all administrations” are focused on “the most important thing right now”, which is to extinguish the flames. And, when asked directly, she avoided making “any assessment” about the public spat with Minister Óscar Puente.

Criticisms from the PP to Puente

The president of the Popular Party, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, has asked for “extreme caution” and to “follow the instructions” of the authorities: “We are all one, Spain cannot have any discussion about the need to collaborate and work together to get out of this critical situation,” he stated from Galicia. Asked about the squabble on X between Isabel Díaz Ayuso and Óscar Puente, he asked to “refresh the political atmosphere” and “not create more problems” than there are: “I would not call them fights, there are statements that speak for themselves,” he said about the minister's tweets.

A short while earlier, the deputy secretary of Treasury of the PP, Juan Bravo, had also spoken: “All those political leaders who are there to insult, break or confront, please, step aside, move away and do not bother,” he said in a video sent to the media. For his part, the leader of Vox, Santiago Abascal, blamed Pedro Sánchez for the “repeated disasters” in Spain, such as the fires, the DANA, the Adamuz accident or the blackout: “They are not just accidents and fatalities, they are directly related to corruption, fanaticism and the mafia”.

On the other hand, from the PSOE they have once again attacked the PP and its spokesperson, Montse Mínguez, has reproached the popular party for voting against the forgiveness of the FLA and the deficit ceiling and not having “all possible resources to respond to emergencies such as fires”. The leader of Podem, Ione Belarra, has joined in, criticizing the management of the Community of Madrid and recalling that the firefighters of this territory “already warned in April that the staff was reduced by half”: “Ayuso criminalizes them”.