Spain's wave of wildfires costs up to €3.275 billion in firefighting alone

The area burned in Spain in 2026 is almost half that of last year, putting firefighting costs at between 1.7 and 3.3 billion euros. Experts also warn of losses in tourism and farming and stress the need for prevention. With hundreds of firefighters still deployed in Madrid, Ávila and Toledo battling the worst forest fire on record in Spain, it is still too soon to know exactly how much this year's blazes will cost the country's public finances. What is clear, however, in light of the 2025 figures, is that the bill will be steep. According to Greenpeace's report "Major forest fires", drawn up using data from the National Association of Forestry Companies (Asemfo), it is estimated that last year the Spanish government allocated between 3,548 and 6,741 million euros to extinguishing fires which, according to data (source in Spanish) from the Interior Ministry, devastated nearly 354,793 hectares across the country in a total of 8,189 recorded incidents. The calculation varies depending on whether the benchmark is the estimated per-hectare cost used by the Navarra Forestry Agency, set at 10,000 euros, or the figures used by Asemfo, which put the cost at around 19,000 euros per hectare. In any case, these estimates only cover the average cost of firefighting operations, without taking into account the restoration of the affected areas. Given that, according to the latest progress report (source in Spanish) from the Ministry for Ecological Transition, the forest area affected by fires in Spain since the start of the year already stands at 172,396 hectares – practically half the total that burned in 2025 – the bill so far this year could come to between 1,723 and 3,275 million euros. It should be remembered, however, that this calculation only includes firefighting work. The restoration of landscapes ravaged by the flames "is usually more expensive than the firefighting itself", said the dean of the Official Association of Technical Forestry Engineers (COITF), Ana Belén Noriega, in comments to Infobae. As a reference point, the European Parliament approved (source in Spanish) an emergency aid package for Spain this month worth 120.55 million euros to cover damage caused by droughts, heatwaves and forest fires. The importance of prevention According to Asemfo's estimates, based on data from the Ministry for Ecological Transition, a large share of public funds earmarked for tackling fires goes to firefighting operations rather than prevention. "We are probably talking about figures very similar to previous years, of around 1,200–1,300 million [euros] in total, of which about 400 million will go on firefighting," explained Miguel Ángel Duralde, president of Asemfo, speaking to Cadena Ser. In other words, around 800 million euros is what is being spent on prevention work. It should be noted that these calculations depend on the official information supplied by the various competent administrations to the Ministry for Ecological Transition, so they are only approximate estimates. Duralde, who laments that "the losses are tremendous" and stresses that "forest fires are put out in winter", argues that more funds should be invested in prevention, which, according to his calculations, would save around one hundred euros in firefighting for every euro spent on preventing blazes from the outset. "The change in landscape we are going to see, the quality of the water, the amount of water, the biodiversity we are losing, the resources in timber, mushrooms and resins, the damaged soil that will struggle to regenerate and support the ecosystem it used to have... the ratio would be one to one hundred," he concluded. In this regard, the expert noted that, given that forest land in Spain accounts for slightly more than half of the country's surface area, around 3,000 million euros a year should be invested "not to buy planes (...) but in forest management". "That way we would begin to see significant changes with a real impact on the evolution of fires," he added. Tourism and agriculture, the hardest-hit sectors Forest fires not only entail a heavy environmental cost, but also have a major economic impact. A 2023 study (source in Spanish) published in the scientific journal "Journal of Environmental Economics and Management" found that regions in southern Europe affected by large fires see their annual GDP growth reduced by between 0.11% and 0.18%. In the most severe years, the cumulative decline can reach between 3.3% and 4.8%. The study also identified a direct effect on tourism-related employment. Activities linked to transport, accommodation and catering record a reduction of between 0.09% and 0.15% in their annual growth, which amounts to an estimated loss of between 5,700 and 9,600 jobs per season across southern Europe as a whole. It is therefore hardly surprising that the Ministry of Labour has drawn up a package of extraordinary measures to protect workers who are unable to reach their jobs because of forest fires. The plan provides for the state to assume all labour costs during that period, including wages and social security contributions, in order to prevent employees and companies from having to shoulder the economic consequences of the emergency. There is also the impact on agriculture, which is directly affected by this type of disaster. On Monday, the Interior Minister, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, suspended harvesting work that involves the use of heavy machinery in the Community of Madrid and in the provinces of Ávila and Toledo for as long as the forest-fire emergency remains in place. Moreover, as a result of the flames, thousands of head of livestock have died or been cut off without access to water or food in the centre of the Iberian Peninsula. In response, the Community of Madrid has approved financial aid for holdings affected by the fire in the region's western Sierra area.