A forest fire approaches homes near Calonge, in Catalonia. Davv67/ShutterstockOn July 24, 2026, multiple forest fires spurred by an intense heatwave led Spain’s government to declare a national emergency in the Community of Madrid and the province of Ávila. Widespread evacuations and the deployment of the national Military Emergency Unit (UME) confirmed what researchers have been saying for years: fires that spread to built-up areas demand radically different responses to those that have governed forest firefighting in Spain up to now.The area where natural landscape meets built-up areas is technically known as the “wildland-urban interface”. Globally, the area covered by this type of land grew by 35.6% between 2000 and 2020. These areas are where the greatest fire risks are concentrated: they are difficult to evacuate, fire can spread from one structure to another, and they pull firefighting resources away from larger fires. The problem is not a new one, but Spain’s legal frameworks are fragmented and severely lacking.Greece is home to some of Europe’s most vulnerable wildland-urban interfaces. Tragedies such as the 2018 Attica fires (which claimed 104 lives) and the 2023 fires (which burned over 90,000 hectares, and included the largest fire ever recorded in the EU) prompted the country to overhaul its legal frameworks.In May 2023, a joint decision by three Greek ministries established protection regulations for all buildings located within forest areas or within 300 metres of them, classifying them according to four risk levels. These buildings are required by law to have both passive measures (non-combustible roofing and cladding, metal mesh on openings, solid fencing) and active measures (sprinklers, water supply points, fire detection systems). They must also have a 10-metre perimeter buffer zone divided into three levels of decreasing vegetation density.The academic research underpinning these measures shows that a combination of managing flammable material in the urban-forest interface and fire-resilient buildings significantly reduces losses. Furthermore, researchers have found that fire damage in Greece began long before the fire front reached the buildings. Many fires were started by embers entering through open windows, pergolas and wooden roofs. Burnt-out homes in Mati, Greece, after the 2018 forest fire. Guillaume Baviere/Flickr, CC BY-SA Australia’s legal fire safety framework is the global reference here. Its National Construction Code has specific rules for buildings in bushfire-prone areas. It sorts plots into six different risk categories, based on the region’s fire danger index, the type of vegetation, the distance from vegetation, and the slope of the terrain. Each category has its own set of requirements for materials, distances and protection systems. One of the highest levels requires non-combustible walls, toughened glass windows protected by metal mesh, and fire-resistant shutters. Another requires a minimum buffer zone of 10 metres from vegetation and fireproof construction elements.Both the Greek and Australian frameworks work on complementary principles. They strengthen buildings themselves with materials and features that prevent them from catching fire (whether from embers or direct heat), while also creating a buffer zone of managed vegetation that means fire will be less intense once it reaches the building. Leer más: Eight lifesaving ways to improve wildfire risk management Forests: the other variableBuilding better is necessary, but not enough. There is broad consensus that preventive forest management – selective clearing, firebreaks, prescribed burning, control of accumulated biomass – is the measure that most effectively reduces risk in urban-wildland interface areas.In Spain, grazing and forestry activities have gradually disappeared from many rural areas. Decades of rural neglect and changes in land use have left woodlands without anyone to manage them, creating dense, uninterrupted areas of forest and accumulated vegetation that now fuel fires. If woodland is not being actively managed, any updates to the Technical Building Code will make little difference.Such management, however, cannot be sustained by one-off grants. Instead, the woodland has to generate economic value on an ongoing basis through extensive livestock farming, forestry, mixed farming, rural tourism, timber and non-timber products, and so on. A forest that makes a living for its inhabitants is a forest that is managed. As the common saying in Mediterranean forest management goes, fires are not put out in summer, but in winter. The fire season is determined months in advance, through the management – or neglect – of the land. Leer más: Spain wildfires: decades of rural decline made the blazes worse, but robust local economies can prevent further destruction – here’s how Leading the changeThe regulatory reform that Spain needs cannot arise from a national emergency declared at midnight. It needs a pluralistic, technical process that is sustained over time, with the input of many different, related actors. These include:Fire brigades and civil protection services, who understand how fire actually behaves in the wildland-urban interface.Professional architecture and engineering bodies, who can translate scientific knowledge into building regulations.Homeowners’ associations and residents’ associations in peri-urban developments, whose self-protection plans need to be updated.Agricultural and forestry organisations, whose livelihoods depend on preventive forest management and whose collaboration is essential for making it work.Autonomous community governments, which have jurisdiction over town planning and land-use planning.The national legislature, responsible for the framework of the forestry regime and the Technical Building Code.The insurance sector, which can provide financial incentives for structural resilience.Environmental organisations, which are essential to ensure that forest management does not degenerate into indiscriminate logging. Leer más: Climate change: how fires and floods are creating uninsurable areas across Europe The process must begin with a diagnostic assessment: an up-to-date map of interface areas, an inventory of the existing building stock, and a review of municipal emergency plans. Initiatives such as the Navarre emergency services’ geographic information system, which enables risk mapping and the coordination of responses in real time, show that such an assessment is already technically feasible.By building on these principles, regulatory reform can be both technically sound and institutionally harmonised – without the need for urgent improvisation or emergency decrees.It may not seem like it at the moment, but Spain has a real opportunity ahead of it. It has the chance to learn from this summer’s tragedy, and to turn it into a collective learning experience long before next summer arrives. A weekly e-mail in English featuring expertise from scholars and researchers. It provides an introduction to the diversity of research coming out of the continent and considers some of the key issues facing European countries. Get the newsletter!César Martín-Gómez receives funding from the Saltoki Foundation Professorship and the European Research Executive Agency. He is a member of the Asociación Técnica Española de Climatización y Refrigeración (ATECYR).José Manuel Cabrero receives funding from the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities for the development of the research mentioned here. He is a member of the Asociación de Investigación Técnica de las Industrias de la Madera y el Corcho (AITIM). He also represents Spain in two European Union Working Groups: Connections and Fasteners (CEN/TC250/SC5/WG5) and Finite Element Based Design, both under Eurocode 5, Design of timber structures.