April started with a Forest fire in Tàrbena (Alicante), which devastated more than 600 hectares and joined the large outbreaks of forest fires in 2024 and ends with a focus in Cabanes (Castellón), which is evolving favorably, and another already controlled in Tegueste, north of the island of Tenerife, which has affected 500 square meters of pine stands on mountains and vegetation on the edge.
By provinces, Cantabria is the one with the most hectares burned by forest firesaround 8,700, while Alicante and Burgos are the most affected, since the almost 700 and 500 hectares that have burned, respectively, are seven times more than expected for this time of year. In Asturias, which last year suffered a great wave of forest fires In the month of March, the forest area burned by fire is somewhat lower than normal for the time.
The high temperatures with which 2024 began could be behind that January resulted in three times more forest area burned by forest fires than normaland the nearly 6,000 hectares burned so far in April far exceed the average of the last 15 years.
Forest fire risk
He forest fire risk in Spain For the next few hours it is high or very high in the north and interior of Catalonia and in parts of the provinces of Valencia and Castellón, according to the forecast of the State Meteorological Agency (Aemet).
Four major forest fires so far this year
Three forest fires already controlled in the Cantabrian municipalities of Soba, Arredondo and Valdeprado del Río In January, they became the first major fire recorded in 2024, with almost 2,500 hectares burned. They have been joined by the one declared at the beginning of February in Almería, another outbreak in Rionansa (Cantabria), at the beginning of April, and the fire in the middle of the same month in Tàrbena (Cantabria).
They become part of the list of more than 260 large forest fires recorded in Spain this centurywhich is made up of all those outbreaks with more than 500 hectares devastated, in accordance with the definition of MITECO. Last year it closed with 57 of these forest firesand eight of them exceeded 10,000 hectares.
Last year ended with more than 89,000 hectares burned by forest fires in Spain, according to provisional data from the MITECO, updated as of December 31. However, the real-time estimate of the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS) raises this figure above 95,000. In any case, the figure is around 70% lower than that recorded in 2022, a particularly dark year for our country’s forests.
Forest fires in Europe and the Mediterranean
In the whole of the European Unionthe 60,000 hectares of forest burned by forest fires, with Greece tripling its historical average for this time of year and Bulgaria doubling it. On the continent as a whole, January ended with more than 12,000 hectares destroyed by forest firesdoubling the normal values for that month of the year.
While Spain was the EU country most affected by the forest fires In 2022, Greece and Italy were the ones that suffered the most from the forest fires in 2023, with more than 175,000 and almost 100,000 hectares burned, respectively.