The Prosecutor's Office is investigating whether the municipalities affected by the fires have prevention plans.

MadridThe specialized prosecutor's office for Environment and Urban Planning is investigating whether the municipalities most affected by the fires They have prevention plans. In a letter sent last Monday to the provincial delegates of this area—to which ARA has had access—the chief prosecutor, Antonio Vercher, ordered them to check whether the towns most affected by the "disastrous" forest situation had these protocols required by law and called on them to hold anyone who did.

According to Vercher, it is "evident" that the magnitude of the fires is a consequence of "the absence or improper application of fire prevention plans." "Otherwise, what is happening cannot be explained," he notes. In cases where the action does not constitute a crime, he urges prosecutors to inform the corresponding "sanctioning authority." Sources from the Public Prosecutor's Office specify that every year the chief prosecutor requests that the delegates ensure that the town councils have these prevention plans. Beginning in 2018, following a report requested from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Food, the mayors of municipalities most at risk of potential fires were urged to report whether they had developed these plans. According to Vercher's letter, in 2024 he ordered a review of the degree of compliance by the local councils and the filing of the corresponding administrative complaints. He also ordered the use of drones to prevent and locate incipient fires to be considered.

While there was some reduction in fires last year, "this is not what happened in 2025, when rainfall conditions, climate change, etc. are behaving differently." Last February, the Civil Guard's Seprona (Secretary of the National Police), forestry agents, and the local police network were also ordered to use drones to map areas that were likely to be at medium-high risk, prevent fires, and verify the existence of prevention plans. Above all, provincial prosecutors were urged to study whether the absence of these protocols had "negatively impacted" the start of any fires. "The prosecutor will need to consider holding those who, having the obligation to prepare them, have failed to do so, criminally liable," he emphasizes.

Vercher emphasizes that the 2003 Forestry Law, amended in 2022 precisely in the wake of the fires in the Sierra de la Culebra mountain range in Castile and León, requires the autonomous communities to prepare annual fire prevention, surveillance, and extinguishing plans. The regional governments are responsible for managing the environment and their forests, but it is the local councils that must also prepare self-protection plans. The problem, according to Marta Corella, vice-dean of the College of Forestry Engineers, who spoke to ARA, is that municipalities often require resources from the regional governments. And the Spanish government has the responsibility to enforce them.