When a fire breaks out in the mountains, the forest firefighters who try to put it out can have up to 12 different categories—from laborers to firefighters—and be hired for only a few months by public, mixed or private companies, since their conditions depend on each community. This Tuesday, the Council of Ministers approved two bills to put order in this situation and create a stable minimum framework for both forest firefighters (about 20,000 professionals in Spain) and environmental agents (about 6,000 workers) in a context of climate change. in which more and more extreme phenomena occur.
The Minister for the Ecological Transition, Teresa Ribera, pointed out in the press conference after the Council of Ministers that they are “two important projects that do justice to two capital groups in our country”, and that they include several of their claims, since In the face of fires, it is “essential” to be prepared 365 days a year because it is no longer something that only happens “at certain times of the year and in particularly sensitive areas.” In a context of climate emergency, there are increasingly large fires outside the summer season; According to an EFE count, forest fires devastated almost 90,000 hectares in 2023.
In fact, the forest firefighters bill highlights “the negative effects that climate change causes in the natural environment, such as heat waves, which are increasingly frequent and prolonged, which make fires more virulent and spread.” more easily”. This means that fires “end up occurring throughout the year, especially in certain risk areas.” “The dimension that the phenomenon reaches requires a new organizational and structural approach for fire extinguishing and prevention devices at the national level, since fires do not understand territorial or seasonal limits and increasingly require greater coordination and cooperation,” the document says.
Thus, the standard will basic regulate the conditions under which these professionals, “who provide an essential service of social interest,” carry out their work. The figure of forest firefighter is recognized at the national level, the extinction functions they must perform are defined, and the complementary tasks of prevention, detection, surveillance, information to the population and support for contingencies in the natural and rural environment.
“This recognition is fundamental,” says Ángel Rubio, head of the UGT Forest Firefighters Union, “because the frequency of fires in the natural environment means that our activity takes on more and more weight, and requires greater specialization. Furthermore, we are linked to the natural environment and the rural environment, and our work is extended every time there are contingencies such as damages, floods, snowfalls… In his opinion, “the standard values the figure of the forest firefighter, establishes a homogeneous national category and defines their powers.”
Rubén Pinel, attached to the Secretariat of Occupational Health and Environmental Sustainability of CC OO, says: “Right now there are many different categories, depending on the agreements of each community, some consider workers as laborers, auxiliaries, agricultural workers, specialists. in forestry… We understand that when the law comes into force, all of them will have to be recognized as forest firefighters and, if not, we will go to the Labor Inspection.” Furthermore, the future standard recognizes these workers' application of the early retirement decree of firefighters in the service of Public Administrations and Organizations, which until now only applied to urban firefighters.
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Anticipation and coordination
Ribera has assured that the Government has the will to continue strengthening the ability to anticipate and coordinate fires with the reinforcement of State resources when necessary: the aim is “a correct risk assessment and permanence of the resources throughout throughout the year throughout the territory with a reinforcement of coordination between the different administrations.” According to the minister, the response capacity has been increasing “substantially” also with aerial means and with a series of reinforcements in the alert and communication systems through the Civil Protection and AEMET mechanisms.
Regarding forestry and environmental agents, the Executive recognizes that there is a great diversity of bodies, scales and specialties dependent on various public administrations and even the autonomous bodies of the ministry, and each one with different regulations. “The divergence in organizational and functional models makes it necessary to approve the basic framework of forestry and environmental agents at the national level,” recognizes Teresa Ribera's department.
The future standard reinforces the consideration of forestry and environmental agents as special administrative police and judicial police in a generic sense. Furthermore, they will have the character of agents of authority for all legal purposes. The basic legal framework is also established in which the status and tasks to be performed by forestry and environmental agents are defined. Among them are tasks of custody and surveillance of nature, support for environmental management, and assistance and collaboration in emergencies and civil protection in the natural environment. The Executive intends to approve both laws before summer, although to do so they must still go through parliamentary processing.
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