The 84-year-old Girona shepherd ploughing fields to stop fires spreading

Eugeni Darnaculleta, an 84-year-old shepherd from Girona, northern Catalonia, believes it is necessary to clean up the forests to avoid fires and calls for the administration's intervention to do so.

As such, he is one of the many farmers who have been helping with the fires in the Girona area this summer by ploughing fields and created firewalls with their tractors to stop fires from spreading.

The shepherd said that in the past everything from the trees was used, therefore, this helped to keep the plots clean.

The problem nowadays is that there are few plots where shepherds can go because the owners do not take care of the forests. Darnaculleta complained that “there are dry pines on the ground and sheep cannot pass through them.”

This dry forestal debris serves as more fuel for wildfires to spread. On Wednesday, the Catalan government suspended most leisure and agricultural activity in 279 municipalities for the high risk of wildfires, while the population have been urged to exercise maximum caution in the face of a heatwave bringing extreme conditions.

At the same time, this means that sheep cannot eat the vegetation in the undergrowth and keep the area tidy. This situation occurs mainly on small farms. 

Therefore, the shepherd believes that administrators should play a key role. “A public estate should give the owners the option of cleaning the forest from the administration itself,” he believes. 

In his view, 90% of owners would commission the public sector to take over its management, significantly reducing costs. 

Once there is less plant debris in the forest, shepherds could keep the forests clean most of the time. 

Roadsite, a communication route of fires 

Moreover, Darnaculleta criticized local authorities for not allowing the shepherds to clean the roadsides, the place where fires can start and spread the fastest. In the past, they burned part of the roadside to keep them clean. 

However, the shepherd pointed out that these were controlled fires because they knew the surroundings, nowadays, not everyone is fully qualified. “We knew where to make it so it would not spread."

"Now, there are many people who are not prepared," he said. "We should teach new farmers how to make a firewall in order to clean the roadsides.” This would help to involve farmers in extinguishing fires, as Eugeni does.