So far this year, 75,000 hectares of land have been destroyed by fire, more than double the figure for the the whole of 2008. The total for 2008 was 34, 875 hectares.
Most of the fires in 2009 have occurred in the past month, July, and many of them have been intentional, resulting in the arrest of 51 suspects. Eleven people have died in the fires, nine of them while involved in extinguishing blazes. This is the highest figure since 2005 when a total of 23 people died in forest fires.
One of the most serious fires began on July 20 in Horta de Sant Joan (Tarragona), a blaze which caused five deaths and and burned over 1,140 hectares of land.