After violent fires, certain territories of Spain will be declared in a state of natural "disaster", a status which should unlock aid for the affected inhabitants, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announced on Monday.

During a visit to Bejís, in the region of Valencia (east), the head of government affirmed that the declaration of "the state of natural disaster in the territories devastated by the great fires since the beginning of the year" would be submitted for approval on Tuesday.

A “psychological blow” for the inhabitants

Bejís was affected last week by a gigantic fire which was finally brought under control after ravaging more than 17,500 hectares of forest, according to data from the satellites of the European program Copernicus, and leading to the evacuation of 2,200 people.

Sanchez deplored the “psychological blow for a good number of inhabitants (…) represented by the loss of personal effects and heritage assets”, just like “the biodiversity lost” in the fires.

“Unfortunately, what science tells us is that these next summers are going to have even higher temperatures.

We are therefore facing a climate emergency,” the Prime Minister said.

The state of natural disaster allows the State to deploy a series of measures after a disaster, in particular through economic aid to individuals for damage to their homes, compensation granted to town halls for extraordinary expenses or subsidies to repair the infrastructure etc

Portugal on high alert

Since the beginning of the year, Spain has experienced almost 400 forest fires which have claimed 287,000 hectares, according to the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS), more than three times more than in 2021. Between 2006 and 2021, an average of 67,000 hectares went up in smoke each year, four times less according to EFFIS.

Neighboring Portugal, which was on fire alert on Monday, saw 94,000 hectares burnt in 2022, the largest area since the 2017 fires that killed around 100 people, according to the latest report from the Institute for Conservancy of Nature and Forests (ICNF).

The extreme weather this summer in Spain, where heat waves followed one another relentlessly, combined with drought, played a decisive role in these forest fires.

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