Portugal’s fires. Burning to build

The threat to southern Europe's trees

“TO YOUR right, you can see Portugal burning.” On a flight leaving Lisbon this week, passengers heard that gloomy advice as they gazed down at the smoke billowing up from pine and eucalyptus trees.

From space, the images are even more dramatic: giant plumes, swirling over the Atlantic, and black scars where forest used to be. On the ground, about 4,000 exhausted fire fighters are battling blazes that have been breaking out at an average rate of more than 400 a day since August 13th. So far this year, Portugal's fires have claimed the lives of 15 people, 11 of them firemen, and ruined many livelihoods.

Fires have already burnt close to 180,000 hectares (444,800 acres) of forest this summer in what is expected to be the second-heaviest annual toll since records began 25 years ago. Aggravated by the country's worst drought in more than 60 years, they come only two years after politicians promised to end the fires that killed 18 people and destroyed almost 426,000 hectares of forest during the heat wave that hit southern Europe in 2003.

Returning from holiday, rather tardily, to a country in flames, the Socialist prime minister José Socrates took flak for his inadequate response to the crisis. “Our task now is to put out the fires,” Mr Socrates retorted this week, visiting Coimbra in the heart of one afflicted region. “Then we will look at the structural causes.” One of the first questions he must answer is why more forest burns in Portugal than in comparable southern European states like Spain, France, Italy and Greece.

Equipment is clearly lacking. The number of fire-fighting planes and helicopters has increased from 38 last year to 49. But Portugal owns none of the Canadair aircraft which are most useful against forest fires. Greece has 23 and Italy 16.

Unfortunately, comparisons with other southern European countries do not end there. Across the region, the share of land covered by forest is shrinking, while the proportion shrouded in concrete is increasing. In all south European states, arson plays some part in accelerating that process - but just how big a part?

As Portugal burns, conspiracy theories abound. The culprits are variously identified as pyromaniacs, as people venting grievances against forest owners, as people with a commercial stake in the fire-fighting business, or (most plausibly) as land speculators. One bizarre theory says Portugal is being punished for sending a small military unit to Iraq. Anybody who sees this year's drought as the main factor is just naive - such is the popular verdict.

Whatever the causes, the number of fires could be reduced if Portugal's 40,000 small-forest owners met their responsibilities to clear underbrush and cut fire breaks. Blazes rarely break out in forests managed by big pulp and paper companies. However, in the absence of a central land registry, authorities find it hard to call to book the owners of small woods.

All these challenges - whether criminal or merely practical - sound familiar to other south European countries afflicted by summer conflagrations, water shortages and hunger for building land.

In Spain, whose building boom shows no sign of slackening, people blame construction itself for gobbling up the water supply - and creating irresistible temptations for speculators. El Pais, a leftish daily, recently blamed “destructive construction ” - -and the practice of arson in supposedly protected land - as a cause of irreparable damage to the Spanish landscape.

When would-be developers start fires, that can be hard to prove, especially when the culprits have powerful friends. But there are real suspicions in Spain that firefighters, whose pay can be linked to “productivity”, may sometimes be to blame. A district fire chief in Celanova in the Galicia region is one of several firemen arrested recently on suspicion of arson.

In Greece, this year's worst forest fires all broke out on the same day, near fast-growing suburbs east of Athens where olive groves give way to combustible coastal pine-forests. According to police, the fires seem to have been started deliberately, with a view to clearing land for building, a long-established practice around Greek towns and cities. In the countryside, shepherds are blamed for setting fires on windy days, in order to open up more grazing land. As livestock farming declines, big forest fires have become less frequent.

The pine-forests on the mountains around Athens make the city more attractive as well as helping absorb atmospheric pollution. But the temptation to burn them selectively, to make way for upmarket suburbs, remains strong. Few arsonists have been arrested.

The absence of a nationwide land registry encourages illegal building on state-owned land. The forestry service has a poor track record on replanting burned areas, as required by law. At best, only 25% of land damaged by fire is reforested.

The suburbs of both Athens and Madrid have seen speculative construction booms; though building regulations may be strict on paper, in each case local officials can be bribed to ignore them.

Costas Karamanlis, Greece's prime minister, has pledged to crack down on building in areas designated as forests. Greek newspapers published detailed aerial pictures of the fire-damaged areas after last month's blaze. If the next set of pictures shows construction - not rows of young pine trees - building contractors and local officials will face prosecution. Or so the authorities have promised.

Article discusses the causes, impact and significance of the forest fires in Portugal during the dry summer of 2005.