Pyropolitics in the Iberian Inferno

On Responsibility and the Fires We Fan

The Iberian Peninsula is burning once again, and with it burn the illusions of control that modern politics has long promised. Forest fires have devoured vast tracts of Spain and Portugal this summer, blanketing cities in smoke, displacing families, and pushing fragile ecosystems to the brink. In Portugal alone, over three percent of the national territory have already gone up in flames as of this writing, with more than a quarter of a million hectares reduced to ash. Spain has not fared much better, enduring its worst wildfire season since 2006, with nearly 500,000 hectares consumed. Each week brings new evacuations, road and rail closures, deaths, and exhausted firefighters waging an unequal battle against a force that leaps firebreaks and mocks the very notion of containment.

These are not isolated environmental disasters. They are some of the manifestations of what I call pyropolitics.