BRUSSELS — Exhausted firefighters. Traumatized evacuees. Charred villages. Red horizons, all flames and smoke.
The dramatic images from wildfires tearing through Spain and Portugal year after year have become a mainstay of Europe’s increasingly blistering summers, a symbol of the devastation wreaked by climate change.
But while global warming fuels the flames, the Iberian Peninsula isn’t destined to turn into a fiery hellscape every year. Experts say that most of the damage is, in fact, preventable — if only authorities at regional, national and European levels would act.
“Climate change plays a role here, that’s for sure, but it’s not the main cause, and this cannot be used as an excuse for what governments must do in terms of prevention,” said Jordi Vendrell, director of the Pau Costa Foundation, a nonprofit focused on wildfire management.
