Twenty years of the Forest Network: a commitment to learning how to prevent fire

The Rotger Villalonga Foundation hosted the inauguration of [event name] on November 18th. "20 years of the Forest Network: Prevention is action. Risk culture in the face of forest fires"The event celebrated two decades of environmental awareness, preventative management, and outreach in the Balearic Islands. The day included a public talk, a documentary screening, and the presentation of children's drawings about environmental risks, all linked to the educational project. Not 1! Fire in the Forest!Since its creation, Xarxa Forestal has promoted thousands of activities throughout the territory—reforestation projects, workshops, talks, forest outings, and visits to firefighting facilities—with the aim of consolidating a culture of risk awareness among municipalities, schools, and neighborhoods in forest and urban-forest areas. Toni Llabrés: "A fire doesn't start when it burns, it starts when we allow the land to be vulnerable."

Toni Llabrés, the Forest Network's awareness-raising specialist within IBANAT, opened the event and recalled that, from the outset, the priority was to build partnerships with forestry districts, municipal technicians, and local leaders. The network, she emphasized, "was not designed as a closed system, but rather has been built collaboratively with the people who live in and manage the land."

Llabrés emphasized that the most effective prevention is that which is done before a fire even starts. She explained that, despite being drought-resistant, Mediterranean vegetation is very vulnerable to fire because it accumulates easily flammable plant fuel: "When a fire is large, it will consume any type of vegetation. That's why, before talking about plants, we must talk about fuel: if we remove the fuel, the fire cannot advance." According to the expert, safety strips, damp gardens, and the absence of flammable materials near homes have already proven to be key in real fires: "We have seen houses that have been protected because they were prepared beforehand. A fire is a very fast process: once it arrives, there is no time to improvise." She also highlighted that more and more new buildings are incorporating preventative measures, but "adapting older buildings and established urbanizations remains a challenge." Year-round prevention: don't let your guard down in winter and spring

Llabrés lamented that the public perception of risk is seasonal: "People relax when it gets cooler, but some of the biggest fires in the Balearic Islands have occurred in spring and winter. Prevention has no season.".

He noted that the team also does "winter work," especially in tracking lightning, which is the only natural cause of fires in the Islands: "When there's a storm, we have an active lightning map and we monitor it immediately. If there's no fuel, the impact is minimal."

Llabrés insisted that society is becoming more aware, but the challenge is to maintain the collective memory of the risk: "People think it will never happen to them. We have to put ourselves in that situation and think about what would happen if it happened to us."

Miquel Àngel March's perspective: forest management and critical meteorology

Geographer and former mayor of Pollença, Miquel Àngel March, provided a territorial and historical perspective on the municipality's vegetation and the role that forestry has played in shaping the current landscape. March warned that the massive presence of pine forests increases vulnerability: "Pine is one of the species that burns most easily, and in Mallorca we have many. Without active management of the pine forests, we are adding fuel to the fire." He also recalled the well-known 30/30/30 rule, key to interpreting situations of extreme risk: temperatures above 30 degrees Celsius, humidity below 30%, and winds exceeding 30 km/h. According to March, these increasingly frequent conditions "make a fire virtually impossible to control once it has started, so prevention must be prioritized over firefighting." A final thought: put yourself in the right situation and be prepared.

For Llabrés, the challenge ahead is not only maintaining the current level of prevention, but also overcoming a recurring social problem: a lack of awareness of the risks. "People often think it will never happen to them. But the question isn't whether there will be a fire, but what will burn if it happens to us. We have to be prepared," he concluded, urging citizens to consider the situation and take on specific responsibilities to protect their homes and the environment.