The balance, still provisional, of the surface that burned in the gigantic August fires in Galicia leaves a historical maximum on the table. The calculation made by the Xunta is that about 96,500 hectares have been razed, the largest figure of the century. The Galician government has made a first analysis of the type of burned land and the regional president, Alfonso Rueda, is using it to try to minimize the catastrophic impact of fire: “More than 60% of what they burned were thickets, bass, not cultivated, and there was also an important part, which we see when we circulate from the roads, of stones, which also compute on the surface. his exact place ”.
“The environmental value of many of the burned bushes is infinitely greater than that of all Eucalyptals of Galicia together,” replies Serafín González, a researcher of the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) and president of the Galician Society of Natural History (SNGH), which emphasizes that the low mountain is “essential” for threatened species or to protect the ground from erosion. Another biologist, Xabier Vázquez Pumariño, emphasizes that it was precisely that scrub that made a protection figure over a good part of the spaces that have burned. They are “valuable” places, with a fundamental role for flora and fauna, he says.
European regulations include among the habitats of community interest dry and humid, meadows and basks that can be found in areas affected by fire last August. Its value comes from the plant species themselves, but also from the fauna that lives, breeding or seeking food in that low mountain. Experts agree to cite a species: Gatafornela -The pale aquilucho-, which raises in zones of scrubland and is very threatened in Galicia and in a serious situation in Europe. But the list is not exhausted with this rapaz and also includes the Tartaraña Cinca -The Aguilucho ash-, the few royal eagle couples in Galicia, partridges, hares or vipers. They are also rich in insects because they are plants with many flowers and those insects support other animals.
The two experts consider that a very widespread idea should not be perpetuated: that if what burns they are not trees, but killing, no matter because that is “weeds, dirt, fuel that must be eliminated.” That negative vision of the thicket “is very wrong,” González insists.
In the first calculation by type of land that the Xunta has made after the fires -published in the newspaper The voice of Galicia– The distinction is made based on the present vegetation. According to the Galega Da Forestal Industry (an entity that depends on the Ministry of Economics), 35% was a scrub and the 28% “naked terrain”, which is what it refers to when it speaks of which stones have burned. There are 8% of crops and pastures and 11% that add up to the areas that had already burned in the great 2022 fires, those in which there were talas or those that are urbanized spaces or with infrastructure and farms such as quarries. As for the wooded areas, the Galician government distinguishes those of conifers (13%), those of lush (5%) and those of eucalyptus (0.2%). This last fact, that of the Eucalyptus, has been repeated by the Galician President in recent days, despite the fact that the species does not form a usual landscape in the province in which the fires have been concentrated, that of Ourense.
Rueda defended last Monday that “just as the debate is how much it burned, it is good to know what burned.” The only classification made by the Xunta is the aforementioned, which does not include any evaluation of the environmental value of the calcined spaces. They have burned natural parks areas -and the Galician government hid it -, areas included in the low Natura Natura of Galicia -and the Xunta took days to admit it in some cases -and biosphere reserves. In the razed areas in August, such as Central massif ourensano or the environment of TREVINCA PENALTYthere are native tree species, but also scrub. In any case, there is no estimate of the Galician government of how many of the calcined hectares had some type of protection.
Forests or tree plantations
Serafín González clarifies that it is convenient to distinguish native forests of trees productive plantations. Lands of both types were burned in August. In the province of Ourense, a lot of pine plantations burned, a species that is identified as a problem in the governing plan of the only natural park that is totally owned by the Xunta, that of O greenhouse, affected in the fires of 2022 and also last August. On none of the two occasions the Galician government clarified how much protected surface was affected.
The fire also entered areas with native species such as rebols -Rebollos, Quercus Pyrenaica-, birch, acebos or serbal. He also threatened teixadal -Bosque de Tejos- de Casaio, in the area of Pena Trevinca. Although the professional device and the volunteers achieved not to rise, there is damage. González indicates that the forest was spreading and that in this and other native trees spaces the peripheral stripes have been affected.
Beyond the trees, both González and Pumariño emphasize the relevance of the bushes. The latter remembers that they accumulate a lot of flora, adapted to hard and very resilient environments. This means that it will appear quite quickly on burned land. In addition to the importance for threatened birds, mammals or reptiles, the biologist also points to bees. And this even has an economic value, since the honey of the flowers of several species of shrubs is highly valued.
Pumariño adds that the bushes also function as carbon sinks and that, if the plant succession is allowed to continue and do not degrade with fires or making crops, they are “prebosques”. “We are losing the opportunity to have forests in the future,” he regrets and points out that this makes resilience to the territory. It points another effect of fires, which causes a fertile layer to be lost and there is a risk of a time when the ground “does not give more.” It occurs in areas that have burned recurringly, in which the original vegetation is no longer recovered.
The expert explains that the stones also have relevance: “In rock outcrops, which are a very scarce habitat in Galicia, many species live. Not only plants, but lichens or some of the most threatened reptiles and raptures in Galicia.”
The “Fire Refugees”
The fires leave another difficult effect to quantify: the number of animals that have died suffocated or calcined. Serafín González points to invertebrates, small animals and, in general, to any species that, by size, has not given time to flee from the flames. The ones that have had the most possibilities, he adds, are birds. But the impact will receive all those who lived in the burned areas because “the trophic pyramid is cut from below.” Survivors are going to be forced to settle in other territories: “They will be the refugees of fire.”
Herbivores that no longer have food on calcined or mammalian surfaces such as foxes, wolves or gin will have to move to seek food “desperately,” says the expert, who warns that they are likely to approach areas inhabited by humans more frequently. “Without a doubt,” he claims, it is necessary that the hunt be prohibited not only in the burned field, but in stripes of protection around which these “refugees” are predictable.
