As wildfires rage across North America and southern Europe, an unlikely firefighting force helps prevent devastating blazes in Spain’s Catalan countryside: a herd of rescue donkeys.
Tivissa Donkeys Firefighters, a Catalan charity, has taken fire management into its own hands by rescuing abandoned and neglected donkeys, offering veterinary care, and providing space for the animals to graze and roam freely as a part of a herd.
The organization’s “donkey brigade” also assists with sustainable forest management by grazing on flammable undergrowth, which helps prevent fires and aids in fire-extinguishing efforts.
Spain has had about 114,796 hectares of forest burn for the reason that start of 2026 through to July 24, in accordance with data from its Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (MITECO), but animals have proven to be an efficient tool for creating natural firebreaks by grazing on dry vegetation that fuels fast-moving fires.
Canada can be facing one among its worst wildfire seasons on record, with nearly 800 lively fires in accordance with the federal government’s July update and a few 3.45 million acres scorched. It has also deployed grazing animals as a way of fireplace prevention prior to now.
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Using grazing animals has proven effective in parts of Europe, in accordance with the European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency, and is bolstered by widely used high-tech strategies, including satellite monitoring and drones to trace the spread, in addition to aerial firefighting tools and systems to predict the trail of lively blazes.
Despite being a lesser-used tactic domestically, grazing animals have long been deployed as a standard tool for fire prevention, especially within the Mediterranean, where dense dry brush and vegetation — a natural fuel for fires — abounds.
“The forests provide them with food they usually thank them by protecting the space from possible fires,” the Tivissa Donkeys Firefighters website says.
The non-profit’s founder, Joan Cedó Sans, began rescuing donkeys in 2020 and now has a herd of greater than 60, half of whom are members of the fireplace brigade. The members are named and listed on the organization’s website.
Amongst them is Roberto, a former racing donkey, who’s described as having a “calm and peaceful character,” and Nelson, who shows “a fantastic protective but in addition dominant character,” and Eleanor, who’s “adapting” and “very quickly will probably be a superb firefighter.”
“We’re grateful for the animals that we feel deserve a second opportunity,” Cedó told CNN in an interview.
Cedó first used donkeys to assist clear land he owned that was scorched by fires in 2013, telling the U.S. news agency that they “ate the whole lot,” which led to the full-scale donkey-led operation lively within the region.
The arrangement is mutually useful, Cedó added, explaining that it provides the donkeys with a dignified life and a sustainable solution to wildfire prevention.
Research shows that while the danger of fires can’t be eliminated, grazing can reduce the speed at which fires spread and make them easier to manage and extinguish.
“Management of overstory composition and structure, understory vegetation, and grazing can reduce fuel loads and potential wildfire risk,” in accordance with an article published within the Scientific Reports Journal.
The technique needs to be used along side other strategies, reminiscent of mechanical thinning and pruning of biomass and controlled burning of land carried out by specialized personnel, forestry engineer and professor Jose Vicente Oliver told Reuters.
Scientists have linked increasingly severe wildfire seasons across southern Europe to climate change. Spain, the third-most forested country in Europe, has registered average temperatures 5.6 C above 1961-1990 levels in July up to now, in accordance with the Reuters Climate Monitor.
— with files from Reuters
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