Why Spain's rainy spring is leading to more wildfires this summer

Spain experienced a very wet spring this year. Although it was welcome after several years of intense drought, the heavy rain also caused flash flooding in some areas of Andalusia.

According to Spain's national weather agency Aemet, March 2025 was in fact the third rainiest since records began. Only the months of March 2018 and 2013 were wetter in Spain as a whole.

While this overall was good news, it has had unintended consequences for this summer as it means there is a lot drier vegetation this year, which is fuelling even more wildfires.

READ ALSO: What to do and what to avoid if you see a wildfire in Spain

According to the general director of the Madrid 112 Security and Emergency Agency, Pedro Ruiz, “the rainy spring has favoured the continued accumulation of fuel that encourages the spread of fires”.

"This spring was very rainy and what was very good for the reservoirs, is not so good for the forest fires. Although it is true that the ground has accumulated a lot of humidity, the grass is already very dry, it has reached a great height ," Ruiz told new site 20minutos.

With the high temperatures already this year starting in June, the thicker grass has dried out, and this together with strong gusts of wind has caused a spate of wildfires.

So far this year, fires have scorched more than 31,500 hectares of forest , while at this point in 2024 there were just over 26,000, a 21 percent increase, according to data provided by the Ministry for Ecological Transition.

READ ALSO: Giant cloud of forest fire smoke smothers Madrid

Seven new fires were declared this Monday July 21st , adding to those that began over the weekend. This now means a total of nine regions have now been affected by wildfires already this summer. These include Castilla y León, Extremadura, Valencia, Madrid, Castilla-La Mancha, Andalusia, Aragón, Catalonia, and the Balearic Islands.

Marcelino Núñez, a delegate of the State Meteorological Agency (Aemet) in Extremadura and expert in forest fires, agrees with the reason, telling 20 Minutos that “We are going from an extremely humid spring to a summer where everything dries out . The pastures are already dry, the wood is starting to dry out and fires are increasingly likely."

He also explained "that spike in wind that swept across the entire peninsula and caused been a big factor. "The most lethal combination is temperature and wind," he pointed out.

Jesús Montero, a forest firefighter with the Forest Fire Reinforcement Brigade (BRIF) in La Iglesuela, Toledo agrees that the copious rainfall this spring caused a "brutal increase in the grass load compared to recent years” and that “the fires we are seeing are moving so fast, they are very difficult to extinguish”.

Of course the rains are not completely to blame. Federico Grillo, a member of the Governing Board of the Official College of Forestry Engineers, adds that the causes of fires in Spain vary widely.

"We have areas that don't burn much because people are more cautious or because they have more humid weather. We're currently experiencing a period of significant heat waves with more Saharan air entering the country, and most of the fires are in fact due to carelessness or negligence”.

Of course climate change and Spain’s hotter summers are also playing a part.

Víctor Resco, professor of Forestry Engineering at the University of Lleida, also explains that despite the worrying situation recently, Copernicus data indicate that the burned area in Spain stood at 32,200 hectares as of July 15th, a figure "below the average" for the period 2012 to 2024, which stands at 70,800 hectares that has usually burned by this point in the year.