Chronological and meteorological time have worn away, but not eliminated, the graffiti on the road to Villardeciervos (Zamora). “Welcome to the management of the Junta de Castilla y León. Thank you, firefighters,” it reads in white letters. Next to it, some tar streaks cover this other message: “José Ángel Arranz [Director General de Política Forestal] resignation”. In the background, the green threatens to resurrect the Culebra mountain range, which was burned twice in 2022 and is now bare of trees. Those fires scorched almost 60,000 hectares (6% of the province) and claimed four lives.
Popular resignation, seasoned with promises from the Junta, contrasts with the attitude of the protesting firefighters: they lost their colleague Daniel Gullón on July 17, 2022 and are fighting in his honor and that of the 4,705 members of the operation. The precariousness persists, they point out, among regional commitments that, according to them, do not translate into anything. The Ministry of the Environment assures that it has made improvements, the professionals deny it.
Zamora firefighters are reluctant to speak or appear in photographs, for fear that this could lead to workplace reprisals. The new legislation requires companies to hire indefinitely those who have been on temporary contracts for a year and a half. If a new company wins the Junta’s public tender, it will have to decide which previous staff to keep and who to remove, which is why many fear reprisals from the regional chiefs, who it is better not to upset.
In September 2022, the Junta de Castilla y León agreed with the unions and employers to increase the budget for the firefighting contingent. That year, the year of the two major fires, 65 million euros were invested annually. The figure rose to 88 million in 2023, which will be 126 million in 2025. Despite this, the crews insist on the lack of resources and maintain that there are cuts in personnel.
There are some more funds, but they are poorly spent, according to the police: they bought brush cutters “more for gardening than for the forest” and slightly increased the number of hired staff, although without sufficient capacity for optimal prevention. They are trying to make a living: on July 6 they set up a stall at a fair organised by La Culebra No Se Calla, a protest association, to sell key rings and personalised trinkets from the Bomberos Forestales En Lucha platform. With the proceeds they will buy sports equipment. Lucas Ferrero, from the critical group, sighs at the social neglect: “People pass by or they forgot, the weeds are tall, the roads are unrepaired and the Junta is at a standstill.”
What matters most is what happens closer to home. To make sure you don’t miss anything, subscribe.
KEEP READING
This year, Soria has suffered an “extreme risk” of fire, as it has not rained as much as in the rest of the territory, according to the Environment Ministry. The province, larger than the Basque Country, has lived weeks in June and July without the helicopter of the device. “In three bases we have been without helicopters, in Soria they are rushing because there are usually few forest fires,” said a brigade member weeks ago; when asked recently, he reported that the aircraft had arrived “but it is still inoperative due to contaminated fuel, and the pilot says that it does not fly with the botched fuel tank that there is.” The day before that conversation there was a fire in El Burgo de Osma and the helicopter from Segovia arrived. Many hectares of the Soria mountain belong to the towns, which have a great culture of caring for the forest to take advantage of the wood or mushrooms. This general prevention is used by the Administration, according to the firefighters, to squeeze resources: “It is not normal at this time of year not to have everything ready.”
The coordinator of the General Directorate of Forest Policy of the Junta, Javier Ezquerra, defends the “comprehensive transformation process” of the contingent. He insists that what was agreed in the Social Dialogue in 2022 has been fulfilled, and avoids polemics. “Everyone will be happy or not with their working conditions, it is legitimate. But we are not even close to the situation we were a few years ago,” he maintains.
The catastrophe of 2022, sighs Román García, 52 years old and with 18 years of experience, did not bring about any changes: “We are the same or worse,” he asserts. The forest ranger recites cuts such as “the amortisation of 100 positions for forest labourers in several provinces”, vacant positions lasting 12 months in public teams, interesting for fixed-term contracts with less temporality but not offered by the Environment Ministry: “Those positions are going to disappear”. “We are on the road to privatisation and the dismantling of the public sector”, predicts García, as positions like these are replaced with private contracts, “with worse conditions and training, less stability and more precariousness”. Many are filled by immigrants, desperate for work but who barely speak Spanish and carry risks.
The firefighter regrets the investment of 7.6 million euros in five fire-engine brigades by a private contractor, because, according to him, “it is a waste that is not worth it”: with that money “they could renew a good part of the public fleet”. “When the tender ends, the company will take them,” he stresses. The sector is still waiting for a tribute, or an apology, after Daniel Gullón died in the 2022 fires: “We have that burden and they have not even learned from their mistakes,” says a firefighter.
A worker from Segovia, who asks to remain anonymous, answers the phone from a security post. There used to be 23 towers like this one, but they have been reduced to 13 plus seven “temporary booths,” many of them too low or strategically located. Those that closed did so for the prevention of occupational risks, since the workers had to climb “22-meter ladders with worn-out rungs,” among other shortcomings: “In some cubicles you couldn’t even open a map,” she says. The supposed advances, such as the investment in surveillance cameras, contribute little in her opinion, since “they don’t detect fires.” “We have seen cases where a person saw it and the camera didn’t, the interest in replacing us is alarming.”
When the provincial delegate of the Junta, José Luis Sanz, stated on SER that “most of the alerts come through calls to 112 from people travelling with a desire to collaborate”, this worker was outraged. “That is the furthest thing from a professional operation. There are people who call because they confuse sand raised by a tractor with smoke from a fire”, she says. The woman lists deficiencies, with “uncovered sick leave and fire trucks without drivers”. “It is a tremendous botch job. Castilla y León is at the bottom of the country by far”, she maintains.
#Precariousness #continues #burn #firefighters #Castilla #León