Juan Pozuelo, a resident of Pozuelo de Alarcón, recounts in a letter how streams and mountains were cleaned every summer during his childhood and does not remember any fires. He calls for the resumption of those tasks to prevent current tragedies.
Juan Pozuelo, an 84-year-old neighbour from Pozuelo de Alarcón, has wanted to share his experience of how the mountains were cared for in his childhood and demands the revival of those practices to prevent the forest fires that devastate Spain every summer. In a letter sent to this newspaper, the neighbour asserts that during the years he spent in a village in Segovia, he does not recall a single fire, something he attributes to the manual work carried out in the fields.
Pozuelo explains that his summer holidays, from the age of eight to fifteen or sixteen, were spent in a small village six kilometres from Segovia. There, far from resting, they dedicated themselves to agricultural tasks: hand mowing with sickles, making sheaves, threshing, and winnowing the grain. Nothing was wasted, as the straw and grain were stored to feed the livestock.
But the work did not end with the harvest. All the men in the village dedicated a week to cleaning the streams and springs, and another week to cleaning the mountains: cutting grass, collecting dry branches, and loading firewood for the chimneys. “I do not remember a single fire during those years,” he states in his writing.
The neighbour from Pozuelo de Alarcón acknowledges that times have changed and that it is not about returning to that way of life, but insists that the mountains cannot be neglected. He proposes cleaning them during autumn and winter, maintaining the riverbeds, and creating wide firebreaks to halt the advance of flames.
“Perhaps there is no single solution to prevent large forest fires. High temperatures, wind, rural depopulation, and the murderous hands that set fires are also part of the problem. But the experience of those who knew another way to care for the land deserves, at the very least, to be heard,” he concludes.
Juan Pozuelo's letter arrives in a context where fires are repeated every summer across Spain, with thousands of hectares devastated and villages evacuated. In the Community of Madrid, although no large fires have been recorded this year, the risk is constant, especially in areas of low mountains and pine forests in the Sierra.
The testimony of this neighbour from Pozuelo de Alarcón brings to the forefront a recurring debate: the need to keep the mountains clean and forest management as a preventive tool. Environmental associations and forest firefighters have been calling for more investment in mountain cleaning and firebreaks, as well as controlled grazing to reduce vegetation mass.
For readers in the Community of Madrid, Juan Pozuelo's reflection takes on special relevance, as many municipalities in the western metropolitan area and the Sierra have extensive forested areas that require maintenance. Pozuelo de Alarcón, for example, borders the Monte del Pilar and other green areas that serve as the lungs of the region.
The neighbour not only calls for measures but also reminds us that the memory of the elders can point the way. “Sometimes, the memory of the elders not only recalls the past. It can also point the way to a safer future,” he writes.
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