Active fires in Spain today, July 8: this is the status of the main fires that keep emergency services on alert

The declaration of an area as “severely affected by a civil protection emergency” (formerly “catastrophic zone”), also when the cause is a large forest fire, is fundamentally an administrative procedure of the Government, regulated by Law 17/2015 of the National Civil Protection System. It is agreed upon by the Council of Ministers, is not processed as a law and, therefore, does not in itself require parliamentary voting or ratification. The Parliament only intervenes afterwards, indirectly, through general political control over the Government or, if applicable, by ratifying royal decree-laws that establish additional measures.

1. Basic legal framework

The central piece is the Law 17/2015, of the National Civil Protection System. This law:

• Defines the figure of area severely affected by a civil protection emergency.
• Provides that it is used to articulate a package of aid and tax, labor, and Social Security benefits after disasters (including forest fires, which the law itself cites as one of the risks subject to special plans).
• Assigns the Government the competence to declare such areas.

Additionally, in specific situations, royal decree-laws are approved that develop or expand the measures (for example, Royal Decree-law 2/2019 or Royal Decree-law 10/2021), but that is an additional and distinct step from the declaration of affected area regulated by Law 17/2015.

2. Which body declares the affected area and with what instrument?

According to Law 17/2015, the declaration:

• Is made by agreement of the Council of Ministers.
• Is formulated at the joint proposal of the Minister of the Interior and the Minister of Finance (and, if applicable, other involved ministries).
• Must always include the delimitation of the affected area.
• Can be requested by the interested public administrations (autonomous communities, provincial councils, municipalities, etc.).

In practice, the Council agreement is made public through its publication in the BOE, often via a ministerial order that reproduces the content of the agreement. An example is Order PJC/1222/2024, which publishes a Council of Ministers Agreement declaring “area severely affected by a civil protection emergency” the areas damaged by a DANA.

3. Administrative phases of the procedure

Although the law does not detail a meticulous step-by-step procedure, its articles imply the following general scheme, also applicable to forest fires:

• 1) Initiative and request: the affected administrations (mainly autonomous communities and local entities) send data and can formally request the declaration of severely affected area, describing damages and territorial scope.
• 2) Information gathering and assessments: the General State Administration collects data on personal and material damages, impact on the population’s life, and disruption of essential services. The Insurance Compensation Consortium can issue valuation and expert reports at the request of the administrations.
• 3) Regional reports: Law 17/2015 foresees that, beforehand, the Government may request reports from the affected autonomous communities.
• 4) Ministerial proposal: Interior and Finance, based on data and reports, submit a declaration proposal to the Council of Ministers, including the perimeter and the type of measures to be activated.
• 5) Council of Ministers agreement: the Council adopts the agreement declaring the area severely affected by a civil protection emergency and specifies the catalog of aid and benefits to be applied.
• 6) Publication and execution: the agreement is published in the BOE and calls and procedures for granting aid begin, as well as the tax and labor measures foreseen in Law 17/2015.

4. Material criteria to declare the area

Law 17/2015 establishes that, to agree on the declaration, it will be assessed that:

• Personal or material damages have occurred as a result of an incident (for example, a large forest fire).
• Such damages severely disrupt the living conditions of the population in a determined area.
• Or there has been a total or partial paralysis of essential public services (supply, transport, health services, etc.).

Once the area is declared, the Council of Ministers can activate measures such as aid to housing, businesses, and agricultural or forestry operations, subsidies to municipal infrastructures, tax benefits, Social Security contribution moratoriums, and specific labor measures.

5. Role of Parliament

The very decision to declare an area as severely affected by a civil protection emergency is an Executive act that does not require specific parliamentary ratification or approval. It is not a law nor a royal decree-law, but a Council of Ministers agreement based on Law 17/2015.

However, the General Courts can:

• Exercise political control through questions, interpellations, appearances, or commissions to oversee how and when the area was declared and what measures have been applied.
• Ratify or process as a bill the royal decree-laws that, in some cases, the Government approves to expand or detail the economic measures linked to a specific disaster, as occurs in Royal Decree-law 2/2019 or Royal Decree-law 10/2021.

In summary, the key procedure is administrative and governmental; Parliament enters afterwards, mainly in political supervision and in validating additional regulatory packages that may be approved in response to each specific emergency.

In forest fires in Catalonia the scheme is clear: the Bombers de la Generalitat are the service with primary competence for command and extinguishing; Protecció Civil focuses on managing the emergency over the population (alerts, confinements, evacuations) and overall coordination; and the Military Emergency Unit (UME) acts only as an extraordinary reinforcement, activated by the State at the request of the autonomous community and under autonomous civil command. This distribution responds to the competential framework of the Catalan Statute and the state forestry and civil protection regulations. Below I detail the specific functions of each and how they coordinate.

Bombers de la Generalitat: command and extinguishing

The Bombers corps is the core of the Catalan forest fire system. The Law 5/1994 on fire prevention and extinguishing services in Catalonia, cited in Bombers de la Generalitat, assigns them extinguishing fires, rescue, salvage, and support to civil protection. The Statute of Autonomy (art. 132) recognizes the Generalitat exclusive competence in civil protection and fire prevention and extinguishing services, as recalled by the Síndic de Greuges report on the Bombers corps (Síndic report).

Operationally, Interior notes from the Generalitat show that:

• The Bombers assume command of the emergency and strategic decision-making, coordinating from the Centre de Comandament Avançat (CCA) all acting bodies (Mossos, Agents Rurals, SEM, ADF, etc.), according to the 2025 forest campaign (2025 campaign).
• The SISCOM command system defines priorities and guides the efforts of all groups under a single action plan, reinforcing safety and effectiveness in large forest fires (2025 campaign).
• The GRAF (Forest Action Group) analyzes daily fire risk and behavior and supports tactics and safety, while the GEPIF, dependent on Agriculture, perform surveillance and first intervention under Bombers coordination (note 28/05/2026).
• The Agrupacions de Defensa Forestal (ADF) are also integrated, a figure regulated by Catalan forestry law and budgetarily reinforced as reported by the newspaper Demócrata (ADF aid).

Protecció Civil de la Generalitat

Protecció Civil does not technically direct extinguishing, but does manage the emergency over the population: activation of the INFOCAT plan, confinements, evacuations, ES-Alert warnings, and municipal coordination. In the large fires of Les Gavarres and La Bisbal, Demócrata describes how Protecció Civil decrees confinements for tens of thousands of people while the Bombers focus their efforts on the fire perimeter and flanks (Gavarres confinements, La Bisbal report, Les Gavarres closure).

Government notes emphasize that the response is articulated with “maximum coordination between Bombers de la Generalitat, Agents Rurals, Protecció Civil and the rest of the involved services” (note 28/05/2026), consistent with Law 17/2015 of the National Civil Protection System.

UME: extraordinary state support

According to Demócrata, prevention and extinguishing of forest fires “generally corresponds to the autonomous communities,” and the central Government does not ordinarily direct these fires: its function is to provide support when the emergency exceeds autonomous capacity (analysis on UME and competences). The UME does not act ex officio; usually the affected community requests its intervention through the National Civil Protection System.

The basic legal framework has been consolidated with:

• LO 5/2005 on National Defense (mission of the Armed Forces in disasters).
• Royal Decree 416/2006, which organizes the UME as an “operational unit of first intervention in emergencies,” and Royal Decree 1097/2011, which approves its Intervention Protocol, including forest fires, as Demócrata recalls (20 years of the UME, model to follow).
• Law 17/2015 of the National Civil Protection System, which integrates the UME as an essential state resource.
• Law 43/2003 on Forests, which maintains autonomous competence and foresees state support means.

In the 2026 campaign, Defense details that the UME has 32 ground modules for forest fire fighting, four helicopters, and temporary deployments in several points to shorten response times (Defense note 21/05/2026). Interior emphasizes that these means are “complementary to those of the autonomous communities” (Interior note 21/05/2026).

Specific relationship between Bombers and UME

In practice, when the Generalitat considers that the simultaneity or magnitude of fires exceeds its capacity, it requests the UME. Demócrata records several recent examples in Catalonia where the UME reinforces Bombers with about 200 military personnel and 60 vehicles in large forest fires, maintaining technical command of extinguishing with the Bombers and civil command with the Generalitat’s Interior (La Bisbal fire, Gavarres, Costa Brava fire keys, active fires today).

This pattern repeats in other territories. An agreement with the Xunta de Galicia published in the BOE establishes that in situations of high fire activity the UME integrates “under the sole command” of the competent autonomous consellería (Xunta note, BOE agreement 2025), illustrating the general principle: ordinary autonomous competence and command, state operational reinforcement.

The deployment of the Military Emergency Unit (UME) in support of autonomous communities essentially requires that there is a serious civil protection emergency, that the competent autonomous authority requests support from the State, and that the Government, through the Ministries of Interior and Defense, formally agrees on the intervention. All this is framed within the National Civil Protection System regulated by Law 17/2015 and the UME Intervention Protocol approved by Royal Decree 1097/2011 (which updates the previous Royal Decree 399/2007). Additionally, Order DEF/160/2019 and Order PRE/1776/2006 specify the organization of the UME and its role as the main instrument of the Armed Forces’ collaboration in civil protection.

Basic normative framework

Four normative pieces articulate the legal regime of the UME in civil protection emergencies:

• Law 17/2015, of the National Civil Protection System (Law 17/2015): configures civil protection as a public service, defines emergencies of national interest, and establishes that the General State Administration must support autonomous communities when the magnitude of the emergency requires it.
• Royal Decree 1097/2011, approving the UME Intervention Protocol (RD 1097/2011), which updates the content of RD 399/2007: defines the situations in which the UME can intervene and the activation procedure.
• Order DEF/160/2019, on the organization and functioning of the UME (Order DEF/160/2019): emphasizes that the UME is the “main collaboration structure” of the Armed Forces with other administrations in civil protection and that, in emergencies of national interest, it assumes operational direction under the Minister of the Interior.
• Order PRE/1776/2006, publishing the Council of Ministers agreement on the functioning of the UME (Order PRE/1776/2006): basis for the unit’s start-up and initial intervention, especially in forest fires.

Types of emergencies allowing UME deployment

The protocol approved by RD 1097/2011 and the previous RD 399/2007 establishes that the UME can intervene, when the emergency is serious, in situations of:

• Natural risks: floods, flash floods, heavy snowfalls, other large-scale adverse meteorological phenomena.
• Forest fires.
• Technological risks: chemical, nuclear, radiological, and biological.
• Consequences of terrorist attacks or other illicit and violent acts, including those affecting critical infrastructures or hazardous facilities.
• Environmental contamination.
• Any other situation decided by the President of the Government.

UME actions focus on safeguarding the life and integrity of people, their property, the environment, and historical heritage; sanitary or logistical support is included within these missions when the emergency requires it.

Who can request UME support

In serious emergencies that are not declared of national interest, the Intervention Protocol foresees that:

• Autonomous authorities competent in civil protection can request the Ministry of the Interior for UME collaboration.
• The Ministry of the Interior assesses the emergency’s dimension and available means and, if applicable, requests the Ministry of Defense for UME intervention.
• The Minister of Defense, by delegation of the President of the Government, formally orders the intervention.

In emergencies declared of national interest, according to Law 17/2015, the State assumes direction and coordination of the entire civil protection system, and the UME becomes the basic instrument of state intervention, with its Chief as operational director under the authority of the Minister of the Interior, as specified in Order DEF/160/2019.

Formal requirements and limits of deployment

From the combination of these norms several key requirements arise:

• Existence of a serious civil protection emergency of the types specified in the Protocol (natural disasters, forest fires, technological risks, terrorism, contamination, etc.).
• Express request for support, normally through the autonomous authority competent in civil protection, addressed to the Ministry of the Interior (except in emergencies of national interest already assumed by the State).
• State activation decision: Interior proposes and Defense orders UME intervention, with the Minister of Defense acting by delegation of the President of the Government, according to the scheme in RD 399/2007 and updated in RD 1097/2011.
• Coordination with civil protection plans: Law 17/2015 requires that the action be integrated into territorial, special, and the General State Plan, which define the coordination scheme between State and autonomous communities.
• Material limit: emergencies at sea are excluded in principle, except in exceptional circumstances where UME intervention may be agreed upon at the proposal of the Minister competent in transport and marine environment, as the Protocol foresees.

In summary, UME deployment is neither automatic nor discretionary by autonomous communities: it requires a formal civil protection support request and a central Government decision, within a framework of clearly typified serious emergencies and under a command and coordination structure regulated by state civil protection and defense legislation.