“96% of wildfires are deliberately set,” according to a forum user

Why the wet northwest burns: deliberately set fires

A local resident sets fire to a strip of scrub on his land because, he claims, it gives him better pasture the trinc year. The fire gets away from him and within hours half a mountain range is burning. It is not August: it is winter on the Cantabrian coast, the rainiest part of Spain and, proportionally, one of the regions that burns most. The underlying question is not the lighter, but what interests lie behind each spark. According to the figure cited in the debate, which one participant attributes to a news report, 96% of wildfires are deliberately set. Extreme heat, which according to that same account the TV news bulletins repeat, would at most explain the rest.

Who burns the woodland in northern Spain?

Seasonality breaks the narrative. In the Cantabrian area, fires do not cluster in summer but between December and March, when old woodland dries out and winter takes its toll. The cause data cited by participants point to intentional motives in most cases. Some recall that livestock farming in the north has been in continuous decline since the 1980s and therefore barely needs new pastures: if it sets fire, it loses. Weighing against that defence is another recurring observation, also raised in the debate: pine and eucalyptus —planted at the time by the forestry administration— would be the species that burn most, which would point to a woodland model that only balances the books through subsidies and felling. And the pasture? Here no one agrees.

The business that appears after the fire

Several businesses spring up on the ashes at once. Some claim that the timber industry buys scorched wood at bargain prices because, in most cases, only the bark has burned and the trunk can still be used for paper or board; the more technical voices play it down, because the sudden heat dries the wood and strips it of value for cabinetmaking. In parallel, two more suspicions circulate. One points to high-voltage power lines and gusts of wind; another to regulatory changes that would allow burnt land to be reclassified, an accusation aimed at whichever administration is in power and that has never been proven case by case. There are also those who speak, without evidence, of drones dropping incendiary material.

Municipalities of 100 inhabitants and the cost of municipal fragmentation

The other front is administrative. In the north, municipalities with fewer than 100 inhabitants abound, each with its own town hall and huge tracts of territory. Merging them runs into political resistance, and the savings argument falls apart easily: people still live there and services still have to be provided. What is really at stake are the communal woodlands, managed by juntas vecinales (neighbourhood boards) and, according to various analyses, coveted by outside interests. The thesis that subsidies artificially keep alive a population that would otherwise leave has a serious problem: without those residents, the woodland being discussed today is left literally with no one to watch over it.

The wolf, the shotgun and a war that never ends

Wildlife enters the same equation. Wolf protection —according to one participant, in Cantabria a fine of 10.000 euros was once set for killing a specimen— clashes with livestock losses, which in theory are compensated but the money does not always arrive. Hence the tug-of-war between those who defend shooting the predator and those who point out that the problem is not the wolf but the profitability of a flock left to fend for itself in the mountains. Inciting the hunting of an endangered animal does not make the numbers add up.

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With the fire out, the debate repeats every season: thousands of hectares burnt and a tug-of-war over the causes that never quite ends. The rainiest part of Spain keeps burning out of season, and the lighter —or the spark— never has an owner.