Spain counts the cost of summer “nightmare”

Jose Antonio Brungya, a honey producer, stands on the slope of the hills, where he holds his hives near the small Spanish village of Porto -De -Sanobri.

It points to the exact location, several hundred meters on the mountain across from the mountain, where lightning struck a few weeks earlier, spilling a forest fire that had catastrophic consequences.

“This August was a personal nightmare for me, but also for local farmers and everyone here in the village,” he says. “I am 47 and I have never seen the fire that is tough.”

In the end, more than 20,000 hectares (49,000 hectares) were burned and thousands from villages in this heavy agricultural corner of the Northwestern Spain, near the Portuguese border, were forced.

But it was only one of the several large strips that devastated Spain this summer, burning 0.8% of the country’s surface.

The most severely affected areas were here in the northwest, including in the regions of Castile and Leon and Galicia, as well as the western region of extremodur.

Production of honey, which is an important industry in the rural northwestern Spain, has become one of the main victims of the summer. Mr. Brungia knows people who have lost up to 400 hives on fires.

Fortunately, his own 1500 hives remain untouched because the fire stopped a few meters from the fields where he holds them. But the damage caused to the closest flora will have serious consequences for his business.

“I estimate that this year I will at least lose 50% of honey production from the fires, and next year the same or even worse,” says Mr. Brungia. This is due to the time that will be required for flowers that bees should grow again in the surrounding fields.

“There are some types of colors that will not appear again for three years,” he explains.

The absence of structural damage to its hives means that it cannot require insurance. It considers the possibility of moving many of them elsewhere, hoping to improve the chances of bees for survival and reduce its future losses.

Many animal husbandry have also been forced to move their animals in the last weeks to avoid fires and in order for them to access the unclaimed pasture.

“For the farmers (this summer), everything could not be another fire,” says Fernando Garcia, a cow farmer from Kostramil, a village on the border between Castile and Leon and Galicia.

He spent hours working with local volunteers and firefighters to control another flame on the outskirts of the village.

Mr. Garcia lost about 30 cattle this summer, and recently had to postpone 11 animals affected by severe burns. Sometimes he even kept cows, not starting them, because of the fears of fires.

“All this was a great economic impact, but the biggest influence is that we cannot sleep at night,” he says. “This is a constant tension.”

Although farmers, such as Mr. Garcia, expect to receive insurance payments, he believes that the price will be stuffed.

“They can pay us, but next year, instead of costing us, for example, 5,000 euros ($ 5,858; £ 4.328), insurance premiums will cost 10,000 euros or 15,000 euros,” he says. “Because insurance companies do not want to lose money.”

The COAG national farmers association estimated in August, when several large fires still burned that the industry caused losses worth at least EUR 600 million.

The greatest costs were burnt fields and properties and deaths of animals. However, there are other significant losses, such as hives, and antennas used by farmers to find their animals.

Farmers are currently recorded in negotiations with regional governments about how much state money needs to be paid to help the sector restore.

Another main economic victim of the fires of this summer was tourism, which is 13% of Spanish GDP and became the movement of the country’s strong growth.

Although most coastal areas associated with tourism avoided fires this summer, the southern province of Cadis was an exception, as hotels, houses for rest and camping areas were evacuated from the Blaise.

And the main hot spots of forest fires this summer in the west and northwest have developed rural tourism as an alternative to the beach holiday, which was previously known by Spain.

Here are popular hikes, for example, along the Kamino -da -Santiago trail or in the mountain ranges of the area, as well as tourism associated with wine and products.

The Sanobri Lake, the largest glacial body of water on the Pyrenean Peninsula, is the main local attraction surrounded by the natural park. But the spread of the fire, which began in Porto de Sanobria in mid-August, caused him to close. And many tourists left the territory when the smoke filled the air in the nearby cities.

“In August, this area was at full capacity in terms of tourism and people who have second homes here,” says Miguel England Martas, Mayor Galend, who was driving a few minutes from the lake.

“And then, on August 18, it fell to 10% of the power.”

It was uncomfortable for tourists. But for many locals, this has written a financial disaster. Among them was óscar David Garcia Lopez, who has a contract to hire two restaurants on the lake.

According to him, in the second half of August, when the local authorities closed the lake, he lost 80,000 euros from the rental bars, wages and payments of his 14 staff, as well as the food he bought but could not be sold.

“The regional government stated that I would pay me 5,500,” he says, laughing bitterly at this thought. “They must come up with some other compensation because I didn’t want to close, they made me.”

The Hosteletur Tourism Association has warned that the damage caused by forest fires in such areas is not limited to a significant impact, but also the impact on the image … these directions. “

This summer, the already known division between urban and rural Spain was emphasized. Decades of rural migration, such as the most violent fires this summer, to urban hubs means that 90% of Spain now inhabit only 30% of its territory.

The rest became known as La España Vacía, or “empty Spain”, where the rare population often complained about the absence of infrastructure, transport connections and schools, as well as the introduction of environmental and sanitary rules for farmers.

This year, the fires that were particularly indispensable, only the connection of this dissatisfaction.

In Kostromil, local man Miguel English Garcia Diegez summed up many people in the countryside who watched fires this summer.

“It’s hard enough how to survive from the cost of feed and animal fuel – it is harder for farmers every day,” he says. “And then from above, it happens.”