Fire map in Spain today, August 14: Fog worsens in Seville and Huesca maintains the alert for San Juan de la Peña

Extraordinary state aid following major forest fires in Spain is ordinarily implemented through royal decree-laws of urgent measures and, secondly, through ordinary laws and budgetary decisions (extraordinary credits or credit supplements). The Government designs the aid package and initially approves it; then, the Congress controls and, if applicable, validates or processes that royal decree-law as a bill, or processes an ordinary law following the common legislative procedure. All this is supported by the Law of the National Civil Protection System, the general subsidy regulations, and the General Budgetary Law.

Legal framework of reference

The general framework for emergencies and disasters is Law 17/2015, of the National Civil Protection System, which regulates the emergency cycle (forecasting, prevention, planning, intervention, and recovery) and the state instruments to declare areas severely affected by civil protection emergencies and adopt economic and labor measures.

The regime of subsidies granted in these contexts is established in Law 38/2003, General Subsidies Law and its regulation, Royal Decree 887/2006. This framework is specified for emergencies in Royal Decree 307/2005, which regulates “subsidies in response to certain needs arising from emergency or catastrophic situations” and establishes that they are granted by direct concession under article 22.2.c) of the General Subsidies Law.

Regarding budgetary matters, the authorization of extraordinary credits and credit supplements to finance aid is governed by Law 47/2003, General Budgetary Law. As a specific legislative precedent for fires, Law 3/2010, of urgent measures to alleviate damage caused by forest fires and other disasters can be cited.

Main route: royal decree-law of urgent measures

After major forest fires, the most used route is the royal decree-law, a figure provided for in article 86 of the Constitution and defined in sources as a norm with the rank of law issued by the Government in cases of “extraordinary and urgent need.” It is applied, for example, in Royal Decree-law 15/2022, of urgent measures regarding forest fires or in royal decree-laws on damage caused by storms or other disasters.

The parliamentary procedure is as follows:

• Approval by the Government: the Council of Ministers adopts the royal decree-law, which enters into force upon publication in the BOE.
• Congress control: within a maximum period of 30 days, Congress must debate and vote on its validation or repeal. A simple majority is required (more votes in favor than against).
• Possible processing as a bill: Congress may agree, in the same session, to process the text as a bill by the urgent procedure to introduce amendments. In that case, the full procedure opens (amendments, committee, plenary, sending to the Senate).

The content of these royal decree-laws typically includes: direct aid to individuals and companies; subsidies to local corporations; fiscal measures (reductions in property tax, business tax, etc., as provided in Royal Decree-law 20/2022 for other disasters); moratoriums and labor and Social Security measures, which are later developed by ministerial orders such as Order TES/443/2022.

Specific ordinary laws and budget laws

In some cases, especially when measures are to be consolidated or systematized, a specific ordinary law is used, such as the aforementioned Law 3/2010. The parliamentary procedure is the common one:

• Entry into Congress as a government bill or private member's bill.
• Consideration (if private member's bill) and opening of amendment period.
• Work in committee and subcommittee, with report and possible full legislative competence.
• Debate and vote in the Plenary of Congress and subsequently in the Senate.
• Approval by simple majority in Congress, according to the general criterion on ordinary laws recorded in the consulted parliamentary information.

When aid requires unforeseen resources, an extraordinary credit or credit supplement may be approved simultaneously, either in a specific law or in a budget law, according to the General Budgetary Law. Here too, the processing is by ordinary law, with a final simple majority in Congress.

Declarations and regulatory development

Although not strictly part of the “parliamentary procedure,” these are prior steps that condition the aid:

• The Government may declare an area as “severely affected by a civil protection emergency” under Law 17/2015, which enables aid packages that are then specified in royal decree-laws and orders.
• The specific granting of individual subsidies is governed by Royal Decree 307/2005 and Order INT/277/2008, which develop the procedure: applications, beneficiaries, compatibilities, and financing with expandable credits from the “Civil Protection” program in the General State Budgets.

In extreme scenarios, furthermore, Organic Law 4/1981, on states of alarm, exception, and siege allows declaring a state of alarm for “serious urban and forest fires,” while maintaining political control by Congress during its validity.

Autonomous presidents are the highest political authority in their community and, regarding forest fires, act as the central piece of the civil protection system in the ordinary emergency phase. They direct and activate the autonomous civil protection plans against forest fires, coordinate the involved autonomous services, and may request state reinforcements when their own capacity is insufficient. If the situation reaches the severity of a “disaster or public calamity” limited to the autonomous territory, they may request the Government of Spain to declare a state of alarm. All this is articulated on a competence distribution between State and Autonomous Communities established by the Constitution, Organic Law 4/1981, and Law 17/2015 of the National Civil Protection System, complemented by basic forestry legislation.

Constitutional framework and distribution of competences

The Spanish Constitution recognizes the right to autonomy and distributes competences between the State and communities: the State retains, among others, public security and general coordination (art. 149.1.29ª, cited in the preamble of Law 17/2015), while communities assume most of the forest management and ordinary civil protection, according to their statutes and Law 43/2003 on Forests. Article 116 CE refers to an organic law regulating states of alarm, exception, and siege, developed by Organic Law 4/1981.

Prevention and planning against forest fires

In the forestry field, the Forest Law assigns autonomous communities responsibility and competence in forestry matters and emphasizes the need for coordination in prevention and firefighting; it highlights the obligation to plan high-risk fire zones and equip them with defense plans, as well as to restore burned lands and prohibit land-use changes due to fire (preamble and articles of Law 43/2003, amended by Law 21/2015).

Law 17/2015 defines civil protection plans as the instrument to mobilize human and material resources and coordinate administrations. It distinguishes between:

• Territorial plans of autonomous community or local entity, “approved by the competent administration, autonomous or local,” that is, under the political responsibility of the autonomous president (articulated on plans, positions 48827‑50079).
• Special plans for specific risks, including “forest fires,” which may be state or autonomous and are approved by the competent administration in each case (positions 49400‑50417 and 49931‑50948).

In practice, autonomous presidents promote and approve (through their governments) the territorial and special autonomous plans against forest fire risk and set the political and administrative organization for their execution.

Direction and coordination of the emergency

Law 17/2015 configures a National Civil Protection System where communities “have deployed their own competences in the matter, regulating their action, configuring their own civil protection services, developing competent emergency coordination bodies” (positions 3062‑4072 and following). The “competent emergency coordination bodies of the Autonomous Communities” are part of the public intervention services (positions 51922‑52951) and act under autonomous political authority.

In a forest fire emergency not declared of national interest, political direction falls to the autonomous community: the autonomous president, as head of the executive, activates the territorial or special plan, makes major decisions (priorities for protecting people, possible evacuations, coordination with local entities), and uses autonomous prevention and extinction services.

Only when the Minister of the Interior declares a “national interest emergency” (state competence expressly attributed in Law 17/2015, positions 72769‑74662), direction and coordination pass to the State, without prejudice to autonomous participation.

Request for state resources (UME and others)

Law 17/2015 integrates the Military Emergency Unit among the “public intervention and assistance services in civil protection emergencies” (positions 51922‑52951) and assigns the Government the approval of the “Intervention Protocol of the Military Emergency Unit” (positions 72769‑74662). Although the law does not detail in the fragment how the request is articulated, the system’s logic implies that autonomous presidents, through their emergency coordination bodies, can request additional state resources (UME, Ministry aerial means, etc.) when autonomous capacity is insufficient. Royal Decree-law 15/2022, which adopts urgent measures regarding forest fires, precisely reinforces coordination and deployment of state support resources.

Relation with the state of alarm for major fires

Organic Law 4/1981 foresees that the Government may declare a state of alarm in the face of “disasters, calamities or public misfortunes, such as… serious urban and forest fires” (positions 1049‑2982). Very importantly, it establishes that “when the cases (…) affect exclusively all or part of the territory of an Autonomous Community, the President of the same may request the Government to declare a state of alarm” (positions 2727‑3785 and 2942‑3958).

In that case, the alarm declaration is made by decree of the Council of Ministers, and the Organic Law foresees that the competent authority may be the Government “or, by delegation of the latter, the President of the Autonomous Community when the declaration affects exclusively all or part of the territory of a Community” (positions 2942‑3958 and 3188‑4204). That is, the autonomous president may:

• Formally request the state of alarm when a forest fire constitutes a serious disaster limited to their territory.
• Exercise, by delegation of the Government, the competent authority during the state of alarm in that territorial scope.

Forestry and civil protection coordination

The Forest Law and its amendments (including Law 21/2015) assign the State functions of common guidelines for prevention and extinction training and deployment of state support resources to communities for fire coverage (positions 22334‑23356). Parallelly, the National Civil Protection Strategy 2019 and its update by Order PJC/1430/2024 (link) reinforce the need for cooperation among administrations.

In summary, autonomous presidents have a triple role: promoters of forestry planning and prevention in their territory, political directors of ordinary emergencies caused by forest fires, and institutional “gateway” for mobilizing exceptional state resources, including requesting the state of alarm when the fire becomes a large-scale public calamity.

With the parliamentary information available for the XV Legislature, at least 2 legislative initiatives with the rank of law directly aimed at the prevention and management of forest fires have been identified as presented in the Congress of Deputies, both as government bills. Additionally, there are 2 other initiatives with related content (forest management and hydrological-forestry restoration after emergencies) in which fire prevention appears indirectly. There is no official and closed count of “all” initiatives on this subject in the consulted sources, so only a minimum number of initiatives can be stated, not an exhaustive figure.

1. Criteria and limits of available information

Your question refers to “legislative initiatives on forest fire prevention” in the current legislature and specifically in Congress. Parliamentary sources provide a list by title and subject, but there is no single and complete filter grouping all initiatives under that thematic label, and the Executive’s own analysis clarifies that its count is a “sample” and does not represent the exhaustive total.

Therefore, the answer is based on initiatives that, by their explicit object and content, clearly link the norm with forest fire prevention and management, distinguishing between those directly focused on that subject and those that address it only collaterally.

2. Initiatives directly focused on forest fires

2.1. Basic Law project on forest firefighters

• Type: Bill (government initiative)
• Congress identifier: 121/000015
• Object: Create a basic state framework for forest firefighter personnel, regulating their functions, training, occupational health, risk prevention, working hours, and coordination in forest fire prevention and extinction operations.
• Link to prevention: The norm emphasizes the need for an “integral management” of fires (prevention, preparation, extinction, and restoration) and foresees, among the functions of forest firefighters, prevention, surveillance, and detection tasks, maintenance of preventive infrastructures, and information and awareness-raising work for the population.

Details of the processing and texts can be consulted in the official Congress file: Basic Law project on forest firefighters.

2.2. Basic Law project on forest and environmental agents

• Type: Bill (government initiative)
• Congress identifier: 121/000014
• Object: Establish a basic legal regime for the bodies of forest and environmental agents, defining their functions of surveillance, policing, and custody of forest and environmental assets.
• Link to fires: Among their functions, forest fires are expressly included as an area of action (special administrative police, surveillance, emergency action, and civil protection), thus reinforcing preventive and territorial control capacity.

Complete information on the initiative can be seen in the parliamentary file: Basic Law project on forest and environmental agents.

These two initiatives are those that, by their title, object, and articles, can be clearly considered “on forest fire prevention” in the strict sense, since they structure the key human resources for prevention, surveillance, and firefighting in the natural environment.

3. Other initiatives with related content

Besides the above, in the XV Legislature there are at least two other initiatives with the rank of law in Congress where relevant elements for forest management and risk reduction appear, although they are not specifically laws on “fire prevention”:

3.1. Bill on measures for the DANA (Royal Decree-law 7/2024, processed as a bill)

• Type: Royal Decree-law converted into bill (121/000042, from 130/000010).
• Relevant content: Includes the declaration of general interest of hydrological-forestry restoration actions in affected basins, aiming to recover forest mass functionality and improve protection against risks such as floods. The deployment of Prevention Brigades and Fire Prevention and Analysis Teams (EPAIF) is mentioned in the emergency context.

Initiative file: DANA Bill and hydrological-forestry restoration.

3.2. “Cooperative forest” initiative

• Type: Senate-origin initiative (bill or equivalent), processed in Congress with no. 124/000007.
• Link to prevention: Due to its subject (forests), it is reasonable to consider that it may affect forest management and, indirectly, fire risk; however, the summarized information does not detail specific fire prevention measures, so its connection is more structural than explicit.

Parliamentary file: Cooperative forest initiative.

4. Complementary information from the Executive (BOE) and non-exhaustive nature

The Executive’s analysis collects, in the broader scope of the BOE and Government action, a sample of laws related to fires or their social and labor context, including:

• The draft bill that gave rise to the Basic Law on forest firefighters, published later in the BOE on November 9, 2024 (BOE 09/11/2024).
• Several royal decree-laws on labor and social protection or vulnerability, some referencing emergency situations (fires or others), such as those published in the BOE on July 30, 2026 (BOE 30/07/2026), December 24, 2025 (BOE 24/12/2025), and February 4, 2026 (BOE 04/02/2026).
• A royal decree on professional training linked to safety and environment, published on April 9, 2025 (BOE 09/04/2025).

However, the text itself emphasizes that this is a sampling of relevant laws and “does not represent the exhaustive total of legislative initiatives presented in the Congress of Deputies.”

5. Conclusion

Based on the available sources, it can be stated that in the current legislature at least 2 government bills directly aimed at forest fire prevention and management (forest firefighters and forest/environmental agents) and 2 other initiatives with indirect impact on the subject (DANA with hydrological-forestry restoration and cooperative forests) have been presented in Congress. There is no complete official count to ensure that these four initiatives exhaust all proposals related to forest fire prevention.