In Spain, firefighters used to dealing with a couple of blazes at a time say they struggle with an increase in number and strength. The situation has been worsened by recent wet winters and springs that allow vegetation to flourish – leaving more surplus fuel when it inevitably dries in summer – as well as the abandonment of farmland that once broke up flammable countryside. On Thursday, authorities said they expected a large fire in rural Aragón, one of dozens still burning across the country, to take days to control.
Wet winters means more fireload. Abandoned land the same.
Sure, they’re still going “Oooooh, climate change” but at least they’re mentioning the right reasons now.
Last night on Radio4Extra was a monologue by Judi Dench written by Peter Tinniswood. It is a very poignant piece but Dench doesn’t turn on the taps which makes it more so.
Anyway as she walks across the fields, she stops and looks at the ‘fire breaks’ .
This was written in 1991.
What have we forgotten ?
Everywhere the eco nutters go they lobby for things to be done which ultimately cause more devastation to the environment they claim to love and cherish yet they never ever stop. The same is true of leftists in general though, isn’t it?
Much, I suspect.
1950s Axminster had a place nearby called Trinity Hill. Playing there as a kid, my childhood memory is etched with the sight of man-made clear breaks in the gorse and trees, along with wooden baskets at many spots, containing fire-beater besoms made from bare twigs and showing strict fire prevention warning notices. Never forgotten it, for some odd reason.
And fewer goats, fewer fireplaces, fewer…
They want fires because stupid people are easily convinced that the fires are the result of a slightly hotter summer, sorry ‘climate change’, caused by eating too much beef, or driving more than 15 minutes from your home, or Elon Musk, and that makes them timorous and sets them begging and clamouring to be taxed more and governed harder in the name of ‘safety’.
Humans are twats, basically.
Indeed and you wouldn’t know it from the MSM but:
TV news has a corrosive effect on discourse, because fire, flood, famine trigger the threat response in our brains, even if it’s thousands of miles away, and even if everything around us is absolutely fine.
But also, it’s what many people choose to watch. Our brains evolved to watch for threats, and that works for a stone age tribe keeping a watch for other tribes and wild animals. And watching TV news makes you think you’re aware of the threats. It feels like it’s near you/ You’re not, because news doesn’t feed you the common boring threats. I used to avoid motorways worrying about motorway pileups, but motorways are the safest roads, statistically. Pileups make the news because they’re a big thing. Rural roads are more dangerous, but the 3 or 4 deaths yesterday, spread across the UK aren’t big enough to make the threshold.
I’ve talked to people who still think famine is a big thing in Africa, but it’s only because the news will report from a small famine in South Sudan when it happens. They never go to Ethiopia and do a report saying “no famine here any longer”.
It’s all really about getting into the statistics.
Abandoned land was the key factor in the 2023 Lahaina fire. It killed 100 people, and destroyed a delightful town.
I’m on record as predicting this back in April. Wet winter > plant growth > fires.
What makes it worse is the fashion for having vegetation in proximity to housing. (So many northerners buying houses down here?) There was a fire was endangering an urbanisation near here. What was burning was the vegetation that had been planted in the planning
This is the same thing that happened in the California fire. Before people had nice reliable cars, the people who lived in the sticks were peasants. They kept some animals to keep the vegetation down, or used controlled burning. And if you had an animal, you got the benefit of eating it later.
Once a place gentrifies, you have vegetation that is aesthetic. They might not like the smell of fire or how ugly a burned field looks.
What’s to be done? Is it most economic just to accept more fires, or should people be paid to cut the vegetation? Or weed-kill it in winter before it gets the chance to grow?
Who owns the land? Should they be held financially responsible for damage done to others? (That might be my preferred response.) If the land isn’t any longer suited to conventional farming could it be used as ranches, or do EU rules preclude that?
Is it like our moorland where government interference had made wildfires more likely, not less? In which case start hanging civil servants. Or hang the bastards anyway just as a precaution.
Dearieme, since I’m a RETIRED civil servant, I’m not going to argue about the hanging.
But this does remind me of my trip to Greece so many years ago. When I went up to Delphi, the land all looked stark and bare. The only sign of action was an old woman scrounging some sticks, presumably for firewood. But there were plantations of trees here and there where they were revegetating the land.
So I’d argue that this is all caused by the usual changes of fashion.
Who owns the land? Should they be held financially responsible for damage done to others?
It’s one reason why I got rid of the place I had in the Alpujarras. The responsibility to keep the land clear. I did have an arrangement with a guy up there for his goats to graze it. But one can run into the problem that grazing rights can become customary, which can restrict what the owner of the land can do with it. The other problem’s the old geezer must be approaching 80 & if he croaks, who else is going to be interested in running goats? Fortunately a foolhardy guiri came along just at the right time.
Politically, Spain’s exceedingly granular. One municipality can have completely different policies to an adjoining one.
It’d be interesting to see if there’s any correlation between the politics of the municipalities & fires. As far as I’m aware Alpuharrans are largely still in control of the Alpuharras. Down here on the coast the municipalities tend to be in thrall to property developers with opposition by environweenies. Neither lot have much understanding of the land. So fires.
Here in the South of France the land owner has a duty to clear the undergrowth around his property. If this isn’t done the local Marie has the right to carry out the work and charge the land owner.
Following recent fires one Mayor decided to prosecute the offending parties. However, it was found that the fire spread because of synthetic grass!
All of France. One owns the land right up to the road. But the meter adjoining the road is a public right of way which one is responsible for keeping clear. Because large farm vehicles which fill the road & overhang.
the fire spread because of synthetic grass!
What an interesting point. There’s a lot of people here put in synthetic lawns because they’re low maintenance & stay green whatever. That really is equivalent to pouring crude oil next to the house.
Lawns are no longer high maintenance, last time I was in Lidl they were practically giving away robot mowers. Even my relatively expensive one that I can control when we’re away and doesn’t need a wire digging in should be affordable to most home owners with a medium sized lawn.
Really? I might take a look at that, although I bought a battery mower and the range was nothing like advertised. I had to charge it 3 times. So I went back to a petrol mower.
I wonder how a robot mower would survive in a country with bi-weekly electricity outages?
Brother-In-laws robo mower lives in a little dock with a solar panel on top. Drives around a preset map and then plugs itself in when it needs a charge. Only cuts a small amount of grass, but it can mow every day (or night). It has a camera so you can see what its up do, and even has a light – he uses it to watch wildlife in his garden at night.
When I were a lad the moors round our part were set on fire every spring. It may have been illegal then but nobody really bothered unless it really got out of hand. Which it rarely did because it was burned every year. Now of course you would almost get the anti-terror mob down on you for that, and when the moors do catch fire every few years, it’s a whole lot worse and the peat can catch fire too which is definitely not good.
I thought “climate change” meant dry Winters and hot Summers.
It means whatever suits their agenda.
The heath fires over here and Scotland are all on land ‘managed’ by the RSPB or other environmental groups. Mother Nature, it seems, has a sense of humour
The blaze at Arthurs Seat recently was caused by Nicola Sturgeons pants being on fire
My first thought is that God is responsible.
He who starts the fire is responsible, not he who owns the sticks. If no one can be identified, then it is an act of God.
Of course, that can be modified by local ordinance.
I would expect ‘rural’ to mean their are no local ordinances.
The Powers That Be really don’t want to talk about the many fires caused by the homeless and mentally ill.