MADRID: As helicopters dump water over burning ridges and smoke billows across the mountains of northern Spain, residents from wildfire-stricken areas say they feel abandoned by the politicians meant to protect them.
A blaze “swept through those mountains, across those fresh, green valleys, and they didn’t stop it?” said Jose Fernandez, 85.
He was speaking from an emergency shelter in Benavente, where he took refuge after fleeing his nearby village, Vigo de Sanabria.
While praising the care he received at the shelter, run by the Red Cross, he gave the authorities “a zero” for their handling of the disaster.
Blazes that swept across Spain this month have killed four people and ravaged over 350,000 hectares over two weeks, according to the European Forest Fire Information System or EFFIS.
Three of those deaths were in the region of Castile and Leon, where Vigo de Sanabria is located, as well as a large part of the land consumed by the fires.
As happened after last year’s deadly floods in the eastern region of Valencia, the fires have fueled accusations that politicians mishandled the crisis.
“They committed a huge negligence,” said 65-year-old Jose Puente, forced to flee his home in the village of San Ciprian de Sanabria.
The authorities were “a bit careless, a bit arrogant,” and underestimated how quickly the fire could shift, he added. He, too, had taken refuge at the Benavente shelter.
“They thought it was solved, and suddenly it turned into hell,” said Puente.
Both men are from villages in the Sanabria lake area, a popular summer destination known for its greenery and traditional stone houses, now marred by scorched vegetation from wildfires.
Spain’s decentralized system leaves regional governments in charge of disaster response, although they can request assistance from the central government.
The regions hit hard by the wildfires — Castile and Leon, Extremadura, and Galicia — are all governed by the conservative Popular Party or PP, which also ruled Valencia.
The PP, Spain’s main opposition party, accuses Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez of having withheld aid to damage regions run by conservatives.
The government has hit back, accusing the PP of having underfunded public services needed to face such emergencies. They argue that these regions refused to take climate change seriously, which fueled the wildfires.
The wildfires have also highlighted long-term trends that have left the countryside vulnerable.
Castile and Leon suffer from decades of rural depopulation, an aging population, and the decline of farming and livestock grazing, both of which once helped keep forests clear of tinder.
Spending on fire prevention — by the state and the regions — has dropped by half since 2009, according to a study by the daily newspaper ABC, with the steepest reductions in the regions hit hardest by the flames this year.
“Everything has been left in God’s hands,” said Fernandez, expressing a widely held view by locals hit by the fires.
Spain’s environmental prosecutor has ordered officials to check whether municipalities affected by wildfires complied with their legal obligation to adopt prevention plans.
In both Castile and Leon and Galicia, protesters — some holding signs reading “Never Again” and “More prevention” — have taken to the streets in recent days calling for stronger action from local officials.
The head of the regional government of Castile and Leon, the Popular Party’s Alfonso Fernandez Manueco, has come under the most scrutiny.
Under his watch in 2022, the region suffered devastating wildfires in Sierra de la Culebra that ravaged over 65,000 hectares.
He has defended the response this year, citing “exceptional” conditions, including an intense heatwave. He has denied reports that inexperienced, last-minute hires were sent to fight the fires.
Jorge de Dios, spokesman for the region’s union for environmental agents APAMCYL, who has been on the front line fighting the fires in recent days, criticized working conditions.
Most of the region’s firefighting force “only works four months a year,” during the summer, he said.
Many are students or seasonal workers who participate in “two, three, four campaigns” before leaving.
“We are never going to have veterans,” he said, adding that what was needed were experienced firefighters capable of handling “situations that are clearly life or death.”