FIRE RISK: Landfills pose ‘high risk’ to forest blazes

THE Environmental Prosecutor’s Office has warned more than a hundred landfills pose a serious fire risk in Spain.

Officials are urging politicians to act after it emerged the high number of landfill sites pose a risk of forest fires this summer.

So far this year, forest blazes have destroyed 32,155 hectares of land, while a total of 4,483 fires have been registered, according to the Ministry of Agriculture. The fiscal coordinator of Environment and Urbanism, Antonio Vercher, has sent all provincial prosecutors a list of landfills, power lines and recreational areas with high risk of catching fire.

He also called on officials to warn all ‘local authorities, owners, and companies carrying out the activity’ landfills pose a risk so they ‘adopt the appropriate measures.’  The study into landfills, carried out each year by the Security Forces and Corps each year, showed 118 landfills in 2018.