The fire business: €1.5 billion in doubt

The fire business: €1.5 billion in suspicious subcontracting

Did you know that every summer Spain spends around €1.5 billion putting out wildfires? The question is not rhetorical, because behind the fire lies an opaque subcontracting business. Official data from the Ministry for the Ecological Transition show that more than half of wildfires are deliberately set, a quarter are due to negligence (agricultural burning, machinery, power lines) and only 4% are caused by lightning. In other words, the fire is almost always started by a person.

The weak link: the forest firefighting crews

The hiring of the crews — those private brigades that put out the fires — is at the centre of the controversy. One line of analysis holds that the subcontracting system — often awarded opaquely by town councils or regional governments — creates a perverse incentive: since workers are only called up during the high season and claim unemployment benefits the rest of the year, there is suspicion that some would rather there be fires so they can work. Even more serious is the accusation that fires are deliberately started in order to later obtain clearing and logging contracts, reselling the timber. These are accusations with no judicial proof, but they echo around forums and debates.

A tidy business (for a few)

The €1.5 billion figure is no small matter. According to the contested argument, part of that money ends up with companies linked to firefighting which, in winter, push for the forest to be considered "dirty" and for new spending on brush clearing to be approved. The circle closes: land is cleared, it burns, and contracts are awarded again. The missing figure is how much of that bill actually goes on putting out flames and how much on feeding the racket.

That fire does not start on its own is a fact. The question is whether, as some claim, it is left to burn so that others can cash in.