Statement by the President of the Government of Spain following his visit to the area affected by the fire in Madrid

SPEECH BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE GOVERNMENT OF SPAIN, PEDRO SÁNCHEZ

Well, thank you very much, and as I have always done at every press conference throughout this year, during which we have unfortunately been suffering from these fires, I would first of all like to thank the media for their work, because it is very important at a time like this that members of the public receive accurate information for their safety, for their peace of mind, and so that they have all the necessary knowledge to be able to respond with the agility to which the UME general referred earlier.

First and foremost, therefore, I would like to thank the media for combating misinformation and for providing accurate information to the citizens of the affected areas. Furthermore, this is one of the requests I am making to the media and also to members of the public watching this hearing: that they always obtain their information from the media, public institutions and reputable news sources, so that they can keep abreast of exactly how these emergencies are developing; emergencies which, unfortunately, are being exacerbated by this summer's high temperatures and are therefore affecting a large part of the Iberian Peninsula and, in particular, our country.

Secondly, I would like to assure the residents of the affected areas that our priority, our focus and our aim are to safeguard their lives, to protect the villages - as the UME has often emphasised - and, finally, to fight the fires. I would therefore also like the public to be aware that the whole of the State, and when I say the whole of the State, I am not just referring to the General State Administration, but also to the affected autonomous communities, the Provincial Administrations - in the case of Castilla y León - and, finally, the local entities, are making all the resources at their disposal available to effectively and safely organise all these logistical arrangements, and to provide shelter for the evacuees - we are talking about thousands of evacuees, as well as others who are confined to their towns.

Thirdly, as you know, since Friday the Government of Spain, at the request of the two regional governments - the Regional Government of Madrid and the Regional Government of Castile and León - has moved to Operational Level 3 and, pursuant to Article 30 of the National Civil Protection System Act, we have taken the lead in the response to these fires, which, as the General of the UME said earlier, are now effectively a single fire and therefore, we now have a unified operational response system, which of course enjoys not only the acceptance but also the full support of the National Civil Protection System, led in this instance by the Ministry of Home Affairs and, naturally, by the Secretary-General of the National Civil Protection System. As General Marcos often reminds us, we are talking, first and foremost, about the speed of response. Secondly, regarding the coordination of all the resources being made available - if I recall correctly, there are already ten autonomous communities that are making resources from their regions available to tackle this single fire in Ávila and, of course, in the Community of Madrid.

And, of course, everything related to the European Civil Protection system, where resources are expected to arrive today
from Greece and also from Italy, in addition to a request that has been accepted by, naturally, CECOD, for the deployment of more than 100 units from the Portuguese Army to tackle the fire in the province of Ávila.

So, what I mean by this is that agility, and of course coordination and an effective response, as General Marcos often tells us, as I have said before. Because it is true that right now we have a window of opportunity this weekend to fight the fire and, therefore, to protect lives, to protect communities and, ultimately, to bring this extremely serious fire under control as far as we are able.

And there's one point I'll never tire of repeating - first of all, I would also like to convey to the media and the public: that the situation remains complex; that the forecasts we have from both the AEMET and the CSIC - which is assisting us - and, of course, from fire experts, indicate that we are facing a difficult few hours because, whilst temperatures have indeed fallen, we do not know exactly how the winds will develop, what their intensity will be, or whether or not dry storms will actually occur as a result of these fires. But what is certainly true is that we have a window of opportunity this weekend to tackle the fire, and that is therefore what we are going to focus on and allocate a significant proportion of our resources to.

And one final point I would like to make to the citizens living in Madrid, Ávila or any of the places where fires are currently raging - I am convinced that they are increasingly coming to terms with this and accepting it.
And I am also convinced that those in charge of public institutions are doing the same. So far this year, according to the latest figures just provided to us by the Ministry for Ecological Transition via the CECOD , more than 130,000 hectares have been burnt - 130,000 hectares. This figure may not mean much - or perhaps very little - to the members of the public watching us; they don't know exactly how to put it into perspective. But if we compare this with the average annual loss in Spain over the last decade - which has been 100,000 hectares a year on average so far this decade - given that we have already lost 130,000 hectares so far this year and there is still a good part of the summer left, not to mention other months such as September - which has historically been so critical in terms of wildfires - we will see that the climate emergency is becoming increasingly severe, unfortunately exceeding many of the scientific forecasts, and this requires not only increasing our response capacity when these climate emergencies actually occur, as is the case here, but also stepping up prevention efforts and raising awareness amongst the public and public institutions. I believe it is very important that all public institutions heed the advice of science and that public institutions - as I have repeatedly called for since last year, when, unfortunately, even in a summer like this one, we suffered major wildfires, significant losses of biodiversity and, more recently in Almería, the loss of human lives - work together to make an agreement possible - a State pact against the climate emergency. Because, unfortunately, if science tells us anything, it is that these temperatures and these weather phenomena are becoming increasingly intense, increasingly severe, and are having an ever-greater impact on our biodiversity and on the day-to-day lives of a great many people, regardless of where they live. And they also require an ever-increasing commitment of financial and human resources - in short, operational capacity - which, unfortunately, is clearly often insufficient to safeguard the survival and conservation of our biodiversity.

And one final point. Today we are working to tackle and extinguish the fire, but, naturally, the Government of Spain - as we have always done - is also prepared to support local entities, towns, Provincial Administrations and regional governments in the reconstruction and recovery of the areas which, unfortunately, are being affected as a result of these fires.

That's all from me. Once again, I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to the media for combating disinformation with facts and for providing the public with the information they deserve for their safety and peace of mind.

(Transcript edited by the State Secretariat for Communication)

Original speech in Spanish

Non official translation