August or bust....

[Bierzo Baggie]

August or bust? Looks like “bust” to me.

A truly torrid few days for the mountains of El Bierzo and their sparsely populated villages. The biggest forest fires yet started on Wednesday. Four yellow fire planes roared overhead all day making endless shuttle runs between the reservoir and the source of the blaze, some hidden point beyond the jagged range of limestone cliffs that we can see from the kitchen window. But the smoky clouds merely mushroomed and multiplied, the unstoppable wall of fire fanned by the wind and at night the silhouette of the mountains was highlighted by a devilish fiery glow. We could see the flames from almost 20kms away. The blaze gnawed its way eastwards and blotted out the sun, coating our window sills with fine particles of ash. So much smoke it was difficult to make out where one fire started and another finished. Sunday, and after four days ablaze things finally seemed to be “under control”. Or maybe there was just nothing left to burn. The teletext said that 4000 hectares had gone up in smoke. Translate that into about 5000 football pitches and then take into account that it was probably a lot more and you’ll start to get an idea of the scale of it all.

Apparently, not far away in the north of Portugal it’s been even worse. Horrible images on TV of village folk running for their lives as their houses burnt to the ground. Who’s to blame? Pyromaniacs? Negligent picnicers? Incompetent politicians? Or are the increasingly long, hot summers which turn whole mountains into tinderboxes simply another inevitable consequence of global warming?