Europe’s Wildfires Expose Decades Of Bad Forestry, Dry Fuel Loads

Global warming enthusiasts are having a field day as wildfires ravage western Europe, with Spain, Italy, France and Scotland hardest hit. It’s climate change, the European press crowed. [some emphasis, links added]

A sampling of some European headlines:

France, Spain wildfires: Climate change increasing frequency, intensity of extreme weather events —France 24

Inferno in Europe: Climate Change Fuels Devastating Wildfires —Devdiscourse (with agencies)

Why Europe is Getting so Hot —DW

A sad inevitability’: after decades of climate warnings, why is Europe so unprepared for rising heat? —The Guardian

Better stop those air conditioners as the temperature tops 100 degrees Fahrenheit, and no straws for that cold drink then.

Other headlines were just as bad in the U.S., Canadian, and Chinese media.

Obviously, a heat dome brought on by a slow-moving high-pressure system to the west, apparently the work of a super El Niño weather system, plus another heatwave coming up from the Sahara desert, has ushered in the extreme heat which has created the perfect conditions for a fire to break out on hot, dry, mostly Mediterranean landscapes in Western Europe.

That’s known as the ‘weather,’ but who needs weather when there’s climate change to promote, which always comes with a heaping helping of government intervention?

In case any of these boobs have been paying attention, the phrase ‘El Niño,’ meaning Christ child, is an old one, dating back to when Europeans and their colonized subjects had religion.

It was first observed by Peruvian fishermen who named it that in 1578. There have always been El Niños out there creating too much rain or too much heat, which Europe has now.

It’s called weather.

What’s more, two other factors combine to create the disastrous conflagration: forest management, done in the name of environmental sustainability, and arson, likely by migrants.

What are some European forest management practices?

In Spain, according to five scientists — Enric Vadell, Jesús Pemán, Pietr Johannes Verkerk, Maitane Erdozain and Sergio de-Miguel — who published a 2022 paper in ScienceDirect:

“However, it was not until the second half of the 20th century that forest regeneration efforts in Spain intensified with the creation of a national-level policy on large-scale reforestation and afforestation during Franco’s dictatorship (i.e., the period 1939–1975) (Vadell et al., 2016).

“The National Reforestation Plan of 1938, which concurred with the rural exodus triggered by industrialization, aimed to mitigate the impacts (erosion, floods) of deforestation and forest degradation, to meet the growing demand for timber and energy from emerging industries as well as to boost the economy and tackle the high unemployment rate of rural areas. As a result, 5.6 million hectares of new forests were established between 1940 and 2006 in Spain (Vadell et al. 2016).

“Hence, forest management became a cornerstone to ensure a stable wood production for the industry sector. The emergence of new materials and fuels and the opening to foreign markets during the second half of the 20th century, however, changed the demand for national wood products (Zavala et al. 2008).

“Over the last few decades, forest management has evolved to adapt to this changing demand, but also to incorporate the modernization of the forestry sector and to consider the new societal demands from forests such as biodiversity conservation, recreation and climate change mitigation.”

Might that have led to a lot of deadwood and uncleared brush? A fire-conscious policy could have made a difference.

In France, the story seems similar. This is from a summary translation from Google AI from the original French Ministry of Ecology document:

Ecological Prioritization: National mandates favor the preservation of deadwood and mixed-species stands to balance industrial logging with biodiversity goals.

Fine and dandy, until the heat dome moves in.

In the U.K., the Woodland Carbon Code incentivizes the planting of trees:

• Aggressive Expansion Targets: Government grants heavily subsidize landowners to plant millions of new trees annually to help the UK reach its net-zero carbon target by 2050.
• Private Finance Integration: The Woodland Carbon Code serves as a government-backed standard that matches private corporate buyers with estate owners to purchase carbon offset credits.

Probably more trees than the Scottish heaths are used to. Again, a large heat dome can create ample fuel.

Italy’s National Forestry Strategy, known as TUFF, explicitly limits timber harvesting to prevent mudslides:

“Hydrogeological Defense: Policy directly limits timber harvesting along the steep Apennine and Alpine slopes, using the dense tree cover to protect valleys from landslides and flash floods.”

Meaning, there may have been a forestry management issue there, too. If brush and deadwood were allowed to accumulate, the forests would be easy targets for a heatwave, even if the aim of preventing erosion was worthy.

The other problem is the human factor.

Here’s one explanation from the left side that notes the role of human activity in the initiation of big fires, with an analysis I don’t agree with:

The argument against that line of reasoning is that if global warming is over, why is only Europe (and Australia, Canada and the U.S.) experiencing this level of conflagration?

Why aren’t nearby Morocco or Libya having the same fire problems, or for that matter, Mexico, which abuts California? How about China?

It seems climate change is selective, choosing only those countries that have overweening green policies for its big burnouts, which happen to occur near populated areas.

Meaning, it’s green policies and forest mismanagement that enable these new, huge fires, which up until now, we have not seen in Europe to any major extent.

The last factor is migrants. There are plenty of suspected cases of migrants starting fires across Europe:

Islamist terrorists in the past have been caught in electronic chatter discussing setting wildfires, so the possibility should not be ruled out.

Other migrants, with little respect for the nations they aspire to live in, set fires, too; just look at the recent wave of ancient church burnings, particularly in France. And like the fires, the migrant phenomenon is a recent one, meaning the link should not be overlooked.

Maybe migrant control, not climate control, is part of the answer, too.

Whatever it is, it’s not climate change. It’s an inability to adapt to conditions and a failure to prioritize fire risks until the fuel load becomes so large that it’s hard to stop any fire.

One can only hope that Europe can get these fires out before the damage destroys the historic vineyards and cities of its beautiful civilization. They need to get serious about dumping the climate change myths.

Read more at American Thinker