Pinofranqueado, right in the heart of Las Hurdes. Saturday, May 20. The region of Cáceres, which Luis Buñuel captured in 1933 with all its harsh reality in the documentary Tierra sin pan, burns on all four sides. Those steep slopes, between holm oaks that alternate between extensions of heather, rockrose and aromatic plants, had also been crossed previously, in 1922 and on horseback, by King Alfonso XIII. There was no marketing then, but the monarch was accompanied by a photographer to check the harsh reality of the inhabitants of this area in the north of the province of Cáceres. None of this exists anymore. In fact, today it has become a great tourist attraction, whipped, yes, by the usual fires that appear more and more frequently. The most serious precedent occurred in 2003, with 9,000 hectares razed and 500 residents evicted. But not the only one. Without going any further, in July of last year, another 3,000 ha. near the Mestas. All were overcome by last week's serious fire.

The horror suffered by the neighbors those days seems incomparable, according to the mayor of the most affected town, the aforementioned Pinofranqueado, José Luis Azabal. Tongues of fire uncontrolled by a gusty wind that exceeded 70 km / h, so unstoppable that it even passed over the firewalls without any obstacle to penetrate with all its force also in Sierra de Gata. In total, 55 kilometers of surface in flames.

On Monday – five days after some arsonist lit the flame in two different foci just over a kilometer from each other, according to the investigation – the situation was controlled after razing an area of 10,863 hectares, thus topping the annual classification of large forest fires in Spain. Of these, 7,754 hectares (71%) corresponded to forest, another 2,000 to plantation forest (18.5%) and the rest to shrubs, crops, pasture, meadow forest and scrub. As a result of the flames, four towns -Ovejuela, Cadalso, Robledillo and Descargamaría- were evicted (more than 700 neighbors). The horror.

On those steep slopes, a very abrupt terrain known as the Chorrito de Ovejuela, the same ones where Alfonso XIII himself also started to walk to rest his equine, walks breathlessly about seven in the afternoon Antonio, 38 years old, the only goatherd left in Las Hurdes. He has left his animals two days before, in tears, in a 350-meter warehouse, about 18 kilometers from Pinofranquedado, where the shepherd has his home and where he has taken refuge these days from the flames. He fears, as he approaches, that his 120 endangered Hurdana goats and 130 sheep are burned. However, accompanied by the Civil Guard (the roads are still cut) and a veterinarian, he checks with enthusiasm when opening the door of the ship (he had already heard them welcoming him a few meters before) that they are intact. Like the entire area of action that he has been shepherding for three years. Exactly 22.06 hectares corresponding to the Llanos del Convento that have become an oasis in the middle of hell.

It is his particular Noah's Ark. A perimeter that has not been affected by the flames, the only exception within a scenario around Dantesque. Nerves, tension, fear and uncertainty, with a multitude of ruined crops, such as, for example, a few kilometers away, that of the brothers Diana and José Damián (430 olive trees, 6,000 kgs. of olives ruined and hundreds of cherry trees). Catastrophic zone... except that of Antonio, the goatherd. Miracle? Luck? Causality? The only reality is that there is a planned work behind, the one they had been exercising. "They are not dedicated to putting out the fire, of course," warns the goatherd, "what they do is that they do not let new masses of pine grow."

MOSAIC PROJECT

Carpenter and construction worker in Salamanca in his homeland (he is a native of Robleda) until the previous crisis ruined the sector, Antonio (single) made the decision to move to Las Hurdes and become a goatherd by taking advantage of a pilot program of public-private collaboration in which Portugal also participates. This is the Mosaico project, in which the association of the same name, the Diputación de Cáceres and the University of Extremadura participate. The plan is to use grazing as a fire prevention tool. It is about turning livestock, specifically their goats and sheep, into the watchmen of the mountain. The fundamental work is done at mealtimes, among bushes and weeds, thus making the flammable fuel disappear, a real time bomb as soon as the first flames arrive in one of the highest risk areas, Las Hurdes, a clear example of a Rural Spain that bleeds.

"The few goats left in the mountains do a wonderful job to help contain the growth of the scrub because the tender shoots that come out in spring are real sweets for them, a real treat," warns Paco Castañares, former director general of Environment and expert in forest fire prevention. Although he warns that "livestock alone does not solve anything, it is the human action associated with grazing that keeps the mountains away from the risk of fires."

This transversal program designed a special plan with cartography for the goatherd of Las Hurdes, together with his battalion of goats, in one of the most difficult access areas of the entire region, as confirmed by the veterinarian Gonzalo Palomo, one of the technicians who has launched this project. "In the area there were no farmers because the place, in addition, has a low profitability by not receiving aid from the CAP," he specifies. It is about "removing the fuel from the forest through clearing, transforming it into manure, a material that does not burn," he says. Specifically, the Llanos del Convento is an area formed by pines and a lot of scrub, such as rockrose, broom, carquesa and heather. The worst for a fire of such caliber to spread. It so happens that Antonio met the objectives that were programmed each year, between 60% in the first campaigns until reaching 91% effectiveness in this last year, a fundamental fact that has now served to verify the effectiveness of his work that covers a total of 250 hectares, which he usually completes every week, the seven days, without rest.

This is confirmed by Sebastián Hidalgo, coordinator of this research team that has its origin in the University of Extremadura. "It has been demonstrated with the salvation of those 22 hectares that prevention grazing works, and more this year with the very high risk of fires due to the great drought we have suffered." This researcher emphasizes that the area where Antonio grazed had been classified as one of the most dangerous of spreading the flames, next to the Sierra de San Pedro, due to the high amount of fuel that housed their lands. "Intensive livestock farming works and not only helps prevent fires, but improves the precarious economy that often exists in rural areas." The program includes three other ranchers in the area although they were far from the fire.

ADMINISTRATIVE CONCESSION

In fact, the management of the program was assigned to the company Tragsa, which is the one that then subcontracted to Antonio, to whom the contract is renewed from time to time. "Entering to graze in a mountain supposes a lot of bureaucracy for the ranchers because there are many obstacles and also this trade -he confesses- no longer gives to live, I because I do not have family and I manage, but for the rest it is not profitable ...", says Antonio, who every summer is forced to reconcile his work in the mountains with the work of waiter in a beach bar in the area to earn extra money and thus survive, In the hope that one day, through resources, it will finally be able to collect European aid for this grazing.

After the last great fires that have been happening in Spain, the farmers clamor for the return to the origins of the livestock work, which entered without any qualms in any area of the mountains, "as it has been done all my life", recalls Paco Castañares. "Now nobody cleans the vegetation during the winter and no one is allowed access by absurd regulations made from ignorance" while denouncing that "criminalizing and persecuting people who still live in rural areas from policies made in urban environments is a real aberration, which in the long run will only bring fires much more destructive than those we have known so far. ". And he adds what he considers another fundamental barrier, "the traditional mountain olive grove, which saves villages and helps stop the advance of fire", so this species should be enhanced.

The next objective of the Mosaico program is to place virtual fence collars on Antonio's goats to supervise "unguided grazing" and make the system more efficient as it is an even more precise definition. If the tests are positive, this remedy would allow the only and last? cabrero of Las Hurdes take some breath because the generational change is another story. Meanwhile, its 120 fire goats continue their journey, at the foot of the fire, and without scratches.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Learn more