[j1elo]

Spain is also completely on fire - there's a website that collects all official information and locates every fire on a map:

https://xn--incendiosespaa-2nb.es/ (in Spanish)

It is disheartening to see how everything is basically in red.

[zipy124]

Is it me or is the map broken as it's blocked by OSM. I get tiles that say: Access blocked ..... osm.wiki/Blocked ?

[tjwebbnorfolk]

spain loses ~240,000 acres to wildfire every year. this is larger than normal, but fire is normal there

[darkwater]

This sounds like a climate change denier statement: Spain has always been hot, lately is a bit hotter than usual but it's normal to have hot weather there.

[tjwebbnorfolk]

what am I denying? some people were under the impression that wildfire is a totally novel thing in Spain. I'm only pointing out that fairly large wildfires happens every year, but that this one is larger than normal.

I guess I need a disclaimer on every comment that says "climate change is obviously real you can save your downvotes" jfc

[kuu]

Yes, Spain has fires every year, but this time is different:

240,000 acres is about 97,000 hectares. By July 26, Spain had already lost more than 150,000 hectares, or around 371,000 acres, six times the area burned by the same point last year...

[tjwebbnorfolk]

Yes that's what I meant by "this one is larger than normal"

[kortilla]

Statements like these embolden climate change deniers because they look so panicked beyond reason. Spain isn’t “completely on fire” and Spain frequently has fires like California.

You need to quantify in sq km or some other objective unit what makes this so unique.

[cineticdaffodil]

Spain planted eucalyptus in state forrest. Tha treeis a bomb.

[rixed]

You are answering "tree is bomb" to someone explaining why over panicking does a disservice to your cause.

Regarding eucalyptus burning: a lot of them burned suddenly after a policy change allowing land to be repurposed after wildfires, I've just been told by locals.

[cineticdaffodil]

Explain not with malice, what can be explained by stupidity. Eucalyptus is part of a fire ecology.

[pvaldes]

The most common species used does not stand cold and needs a lot of water. This means that they are often restricted to the humid parts of the country near the seashore. They have also owners that seen it as valuable, and regrow as trees, not as a pasture, so unsurprisingly they burn much less than people would expect.

Some very big wildfires with criminally suspicious causes are based on Eucaliptus, but pines and forest regeneration on the low bush state are the worse offenders, as they were actively targeted first by locals and now also by foreigners. Locals hate young bushes of the less flammable species with passion here. They really can't refrain themselves from keep burning it.

Laws that forbid the change of use of land did make a big difference in the past, but are seen as ideological and were revoked by far right politicians. The start of wildfire waves after that move was immediate. This happened a few years ago. One step forward is followed by two steps backward.

[watwut]

Meh, everything emboldens them. Pretending there is no change also emboldens them.

[rixed]

If you unzoom even more, even the sea is red. I don't think this map shows what you think it does.

[embedding-shape]

I don't think parent thinks the radius of the circles is the range of the fire, that'd indeed mean our sea is currently on fire too, which hasn't happened in a very long time.