An international reforestation company has said it is “devastated” after one of its contractors accidentally caused a massive fire in Spain, where dozens of calamitous wildfires have raged this week.
Land Life, a Netherlands-based company with offices in Spain and the US, said the fire broke out on Monday at one of its reforestation projects in Ateca in the north-eastern region of Aragón.
The company said the blaze, estimated to have damaged 14,000 hectares (34,600 acres) of land, was caused after a spark escaped from an excavator used by one of its contractors to prepare the soil for tree planting in the winter.
The fire, which was finally brought under control late on Thursday, led to the evacuation of 1,700 people from the surrounding area. The company said it had alerted the emergency services as soon as the blaze started, and “profoundly regretted” the damage and inconvenience caused.
“We are devastated by the latest estimate that the damage will be around 14,000 hectares,” Land Life said.
“We sympathise deeply with the feelings of the local community who had to be evacuated from their homes and see their landscape severely damaged.”
Land Life said it had offered its help to the authorities and had begun an investigation into what happened.
“We will continue to follow up on anything we can do in this situation,” it added.
“We want to emphasise that the contractor, a local company with extensive experience in the area, had the appropriate authorisation issued by the local and regional authorities.”
According to Spanish media, Land Life was accused of causing another fire in the region last month that burned through 20 hectares of land.
“It’s not right that they should carry on working when this has already happened once,” the mayor of Bubierca, one of the evacuated villages, told El Heraldo de Aragón.
Land Life says it is committed to helping restore degraded land around the world. According to its website: “Land Life Company was founded on the shared conviction that a business approach and technology can drive innovation to restore nature in our lifetime.”
Two people have died in forest fires that have raged across many parts of Spain, while thousands have been evacuated.
Spain is estimated to have lost almost 200,000 hectares of land to wildfires so far this year – 80,000 of them during last week’s heatwave and the one that preceded it in June.
