Restoring Gredos

Fire

Fire has two faces. When it becomes uncontrolled, it can be devastating: it destroys habitats, threatens human communities, and causes ecological losses that are difficult to repair. Yet in Mediterranean ecosystems, fire has also played an important ecological role throughout history. Under certain conditions, low-intensity burns can renew grasslands, limit the spread of dominant plants, and help maintain open and diverse landscapes.

Large herbivores help control the growth of many plant species, but they do not consume them all equally. Some, such as juniper and bracken, may fall outside their preferred diet and expand when other disturbances decline. If they come to dominate large areas, they reduce plant and animal diversity, hinder the regeneration of other habitats, and accumulate large amounts of biomass that can fuel much more intense wildfires.

We want to work with public authorities, fire prevention and suppression services, and local communities to develop rigorous protocols for prescribed burning. These would be small, localised interventions carried out during the cold and wet months, when fire can be kept under control. In designing them, we hope to recover the knowledge embedded in the cultural burning practices historically used in these mountains until quite recently, combining it with scientific monitoring and current safety standards. The aim is not to introduce more fire into the landscape, but to use it exceptionally, precisely, and responsibly where it can help prevent catastrophic wildfires, restore biodiversity, and maintain the ecological processes that shaped the mountain savanna.