Every summer, forest fires are repeated in the Spanish landscape and star in the news. The last few days have been particularly dramatic, with devastating fires in Tarifa, Zamora, Madrid and Las Médulas, a natural area that was completely destroyed.

While the numbers of destruction vary dramatically-frommore than 310,000 hectares burned in 2022 to approximately 48,000 hectares in 2024-theirtrail of destruction on biodiversity and rural communities remains. It is a good time to remember that, also with fire, the best strategy is prevention.

To avoid it, we must first understand how a fire starts. The core topic lies in a fundamental concept, the "fire triangle", composed of three elements: heat, oxygen and fuel. If we eliminate any one of them, the fire is extinguished.

Heat is the detonator, the "lighter" that ignites the flame, in the form of lightning, an accidental spark or negligence. In Spain, more than 90 % of fires have human causes. Oxygen, present in the air, feeds the flame. That is why when a candle is covered with a glass and this element is removed, it goes out.

Finally, there is the fuel. In a barbecue, charcoal alone does not burn; it needs a material that ignites easily to feed the flame. The same is true in the bush, where undergrowth vegetation - dry grasses, shrubs and fallen branches - acts like paper or wood chips: it is the material that ignites most easily and allows the fire to spread to the trees .

With heat and oxygen out of our direct control, the only realistic avenue for prevention is the management the third component: fuel. And the main manager of its dangerous accumulation is a silenced problem: rural withdrawal . Many inland areas of Spain have ceased to be cultivated or grazed. As a result, the forest is filled with vegetation that acts as a natural fuel.

Putting out the fire is the ultimate solution and, therefore, it is always too late. The core topic, therefore, is not only to fight the flames, but to bet on an active management of the landscape, which allows us to control this vegetal fuel. It is not a matter of eliminating vegetation, but of managing it intelligently.

A "clean" forest is not a forest without vegetation, but a healthy and resilient ecosystem that hosts biodiversity refuges and maintains essential habitats.

The core topic is to generate a rural Economics based on the use of the forest. Although these tasks generate employment in empty Spain, they also cost money. Therefore, it is essential to give value to the forest. For the forest to last, it is necessary to create a sustainable Economics based on products and services such as extensive livestock farming, forestry, mixed agriculture, tourism and other non-timber products.

Projects such as PRISMA, BIOVALOR or Bio+Málaga are exploring how to turn this active management into employment and opportunities for rural areas. It is about reimagining our forests not only as natural spaces, but also as engines of local development .

Technology can play an important role in the development of rural Economics . In Navarra, the emergency services have developed a geographic information system that allows mapping risk areas, visualizing access and coordinating responses in real time.

This system, whose value lies in prevention, makes it possible to know precisely where vegetation fuel is accumulating, which roads are inactive or which areas require priority attention. Thus, forest management can be based on data and evidence, allowing resources to be invested where they are most needed, and to be more efficient and accurate.

The old forestry saying is very true: fires are not extinguished in summer, but in winter. Preventing fires means rethinking the use of our forest resources. A well-managed forest, which feeds a circular Economics around its products and services, is a safer forest.

While giving value to the forest reduces the threats to it, caring for the forests translates into revitalizing rural Economics and refund life to the villages.

The opportunity for a more prosperous and resilient future lies in our forests. Because a managed forest is more useful, more biodiverse and more alive. And, of course, it reduces the danger of fires.