Wildfires are becoming more difficult to manage, he says, because the land isn’t actively controlled with vegetation-thinning and deliberate burns. “The problem is that we as a society have only reacted to a problem, building up firefighting capacity,” says Castellnou. “We haven’t built up ecosystem management.”
The demographic change and cityward migration is happening alongside climate change. A Mediterranean climate—both in the region around the Mediterranean Sea and in similar places like California—is already prone to wildfire. Rainy winters and springs encourage the growth of plants, which desiccate in the dry summer and turn into fuel. Climate change has made those conditions drier—and hotter—for longer. “It’s a performance enhancer,” says
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