The president of Castile and León defends his handling of the fires amid calls for his resignation.

Madrid / BarcelonaWith dozens of firefighters demanding his resignation at the doors of the regional parliament, the president of Castile and León, Alfonso Fernández Mañueco, is attempting to defend his handling of the fires that have burned thousands of hectares in his community. "I would have preferred to appear with the full report. What is happening is too important and real to make political calculations," warned the regional leader of the PP, addressing the PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party) faction, which promoted his appearance in parliament this Friday and, along with several other parties, has called for his resignation. Mañueco estimated the number of hectares affected by the fires at 141,000, which particularly affected the provinces of León and Zamora, after 348 fires in 23 days, in which three people lost their lives. The plenary session observed a minute of silence in his memory.

"I don't think this is the time to make partisan gains or to make politics out of fires," Mañueco insisted in his opening remarks, in which he stressed that the weather conditions of recent weeks have been "exceptional," with a heat wave that has lasted for many days. "When there are extreme circumstances, fires are beyond the capacity to extinguish. The intensity and voracity render extinguishing techniques useless. (...) The Minister of Defense pointed out: "These are extremely voracious fires, very difficult to extinguish, if not impossible. It's impossible to control them from the ground or the air." I completely agree," Mañueco excused himself.

The president of Castilla y León thanked the emergency services and the regional and Spanish governments that have provided resources for the extinguishing, as well as those of other European countries that have collaborated. However, Mañueco expressed his gratitude for the work of the firefighters, given that Castilla y León has outsourced its forestry and emergency services to several private companies. And the workers denounce precarious conditions.

In their interventions, several opposition groups criticized him for this outsourcing and the fact that he did not appear voluntarily. "You are appearing because you had no other choice," stated Elisa Patricia Gómez, spokesperson for the PSOE parliamentary group. The Socialists accused Mañueco of lying during his speech about investment in prevention: they claim that the regional president has left "unspent" 71% of a budget "already cut" by the PP governments. "We have been denouncing the risk and seriousness of this situation for years, and you and your party have only mocked our insistence," said Gómez, who demanded Mañueco's resignation, stating that he will emerge "politically condemned" from today's appearance.

Podemos MP Pablo Fernández has also asked him to back down, announcing that the party will take Mañueco to the Prosecutor's Office: "You should resign, but you won't because you have no shame, no ethics, no morals." Fernández also warned that those who vote for the Popular Party in the regional elections next March "will also be responsible for what happens," and expressed his hope that, "with this management," Castilla y León, where the Popular Party has governed for 38 years, "will react once and for all."

"We've certainly made mistakes"

Mañueco acknowledged that some things could have been done better: "We've certainly made mistakes," he said, but he shielded himself behind the virulence of the fires and asserted that "none of these errors were committed to gain a vote," but rather were "the result of difficulty or urgency, never of manipulation." Distancing himself from the opposition, he reiterated: "This is on the moral border that separates us." In response to criticism for taking so long to cancel his vacation, Mañueco asserted that he called it off "as soon as the situation got out of hand," while Pedro Sánchez was in Lanzarote while "half of Spain was burning." However, he said that it would "never" occur to him to think that "a tragedy of this magnitude is indifferent" to Sánchez, and in this sense, he made it clear that it is not indifferent to him either; that is why he returned "immediately" and that the criticism in this regard is because they have sought "the easy way out" against him.

About the controversial request for help that Castilla y León made on July 15, and that caused the clash between the PP and the state director of Civil Protection, Virginia Barcones, Mañueco stated that what was being requested was "a reinforcement of logistical support efforts," and under no circumstances more resources to attack the blazes, with the aim of "freeing up" Castile and León's firefighting personnel from prevention and surveillance duties so they could go to the front lines. A few days ago, Barcones stated that some autonomous communities had requested "impossible" measures, and this Tuesday Robles hinted that the requests were "a consequence" of Genoa's criticism of the Spanish government's management..

The regional president defended himself by asserting that his government has "tripled resources for prevention compared to 2022 with more than 74 million euros." "We are the region that invests the most in preventative work. Our prevention policies are innovative and unique," he asserted. However, he announced that next week he will promote a decree to regulate the planning and management of forests in Castile and León and has pledged to strengthen the preventive perspective of fires in calls for aid to rural areas and agricultural activities. He also stated that he will open a broad social dialogue with stakeholders in the forestry and rural sectors to contribute ideas on how to improve prevention. A debate that, he added, began this Friday with the appearance before the political groups.

The meeting with Sánchez

In fact, the head of the Castilian-Leonese government recalled that three years ago he proposed to Spanish President Pedro Sánchez that fire prevention be addressed as a "matter of state." In 2022, the worst fires recorded before this summer occurred in the Culebra mountain range. Now, the head of the Spanish government has also proposed a state pact "against the climate emergency," which the PP leadership has so far rejected because it sees "political tacticism" and believes it diverts the focus of the debate by placing the issue of climate change at the center. However, those in the Moncloa government believe that regional leaders do want to address this state pact, as Mañueco has demonstrated, because it would free the fires from the political squabble.