The fire in Vall d'Uixó exceeds 8,500 hectares and keeps more than 70,000 people confined in Castellón.

In the Valencian Community, the confinement and evacuation of municipalities are not decided in isolation but as protection measures provided for in Law 13/2010 on Civil Protection and Emergency Management and in the Territorial Emergency Plan of the Valencian Community (PTECV). The central operational authority is the councilor responsible for civil protection, who exercises the Unified Command of the emergency, and mayors act within their municipal plans. These decisions are always made within the framework of civil protection plans (territorial and special), with previously approved and standardized procedures.

Basic legal framework

The core regulation is Law 13/2010, on Civil Protection and Emergency Management, which regulates the system throughout the Valencian territory. On this basis, the following are approved:

• The Territorial Emergency Plan of the Valencian Community (PTECV), by Decree 119/2013, as the regional master plan.
• Various special plans for specific risks, such as the Special Plan for Radiological Risk.

These plans develop the organization, emergency levels, and operational procedures that include when and how to order confinements or evacuations.

Competent authorities and decision levels

According to Law 13/2010, the Consell is the highest body for direction and coordination of civil protection, while the councilor responsible for the matter exercises the Unified Command of the emergency. Among their legal functions are explicitly included:

• Directing civil protection plans.
• Declaring the levels, phases, or emergency situations established in those plans.
• Determining the most appropriate protection measures for people, property, and the environment.

The law itself specifies that these protection measures for the population include, among others, confinement, removal, and evacuation of the population. That is, the confinement or evacuation of one or more municipalities is agreed upon as a decision of the Unified Command, within the activation of a civil protection plan.

In especially serious situations, the law foresees that the president of the Generalitat may declare a “catastrophic emergency situation”, personally assuming the unified command and direction of all emergency activities. In this context, the Consell and the president may issue “urgent rules”, motivated and published in the Official Gazette, to address the needs of the emergency.

Role of municipalities

Municipalities, according to Law 13/2010, must:

• Approve their Municipal Territorial Emergency Plan and municipal plans for specific risks.
• Develop the risk map and the catalog of municipal resources.
• Make their resources available to the Unified Command.

The municipal authority is responsible for adopting the necessary measures within the municipal area, according to their civil protection plans and the plans activated by the Generalitat. In emergencies of some magnitude, the CECOPAL (municipal coordination center) is established, which coordinates with the regional Emergency Coordination Center and the Advanced Command Post.

Practical procedure for confinements and evacuations

In summary, the legal-administrative scheme is as follows:

• Detection and notification of risk through the 1·1·2 phone number and intervention services, integrated into the emergency system regulated by Law 13/2010.
• Activation of the corresponding plan (PTECV or special plan), with declaration of emergency level or phase by the Unified Command, as provided in those plans.
• Decision on protection measures: the councilor, as Unified Command, determines whether confinement, removal, or total or partial evacuation of one or more municipalities is appropriate, based on the technical criteria incorporated into the plans.
• Communication to the population through the planned channels (alerts, self-protection instructions, etc.), which are part of the legal obligations of coordination and information established in Law 13/2010.
• Inter-administrative coordination: when the emergency affects several administrations or may reach national interest, the CECOPI (Integrated Operational Coordination Center) may be established and, if applicable, the State may be requested to declare a national interest emergency; in this scenario, state civil protection legislation also applies.
• End of the emergency: the Unified Command itself declares the end of the emergency under the terms provided in the plans, which implies lifting confinements and restrictions.

Guarantees and prior planning

The use of confinements and evacuations is legally bounded by two central elements: the law and the previously approved and standardized plans (PTECV, special plans, and municipal plans). Law 13/2010 requires that all these instruments comply with the Basic Civil Protection Standard and sets principles of action such as cooperation, coordination, and institutional loyalty. Thus, decisions to confine or evacuate municipalities are made with known prior basis, written procedures, and a clear command hierarchy between the Generalitat and municipalities.

The competencies of the councilor responsible for Emergencies in the management of forest fires depend on the legislation of each autonomous community (laws on emergencies, civil protection, forests, and regional forest fires). Without identifying the specific community and without access to the regional legal text, it is not possible to detail precisely what powers they have “according to regional legislation.” However, based on the typical institutional design in Spain, the block of functions usually assumed by these departments in planning, coordination, and direction of forest fire fighting can be described.

General regional framework

In Spain, the main competence in prevention and extinction of forest fires is regional, in coordination with the State and municipalities. Usually, the regional law on emergencies, civil protection, or forests establishes a “civil protection authority” or “emergencies authority” that usually falls to the councilor responsible for Interior, Emergencies, or Security. That regulation defines both the councilor’s own functions and the structure of services (environmental agents, forest brigades, firefighters, 112 emergency services, etc.).

Therefore, the councilor of Emergencies (or equivalent) acts as the highest political responsible for planning and coordinating the prevention and extinction system, although the technical direction of operations is delegated to professional commanders (service chiefs, extinction directors, operational coordination centers, etc.).

Common competencies in prevention

Although specific details vary by community, regional laws usually assign to the councilor of Emergencies, in coordination with the councilor responsible for environment, competencies such as:

• Plan approval: promotion and approval of the Special Civil Protection Plan against Forest Fires (or its proposal to the regional government), as well as territorial and sectoral emergency plans regarding fire risk.
• Resource management: determination of the basic deployment of means and resources against fires (fire stations, forest brigades, aerial means, coordination centers, etc.), at least in terms of strategic planning.
• Preventive regulation: proposal of rules and preventive measures (fire use restrictions, clearing campaigns, safety strips, restrictions during extreme risk periods), often jointly with the environment department.
• Information campaigns: promotion of citizen awareness campaigns against fire risk, environmental education on self-protection, and dissemination of safety recommendations.
• Inter-administrative coordination: establishment of coordination mechanisms with municipalities and provincial councils for municipal emergency plans, self-protection plans, and local ordinances related to forest risk.

Competencies in management and extinction of fires

In the emergency phase (when the fire has already been declared), regional legislation usually assigns to the councilor or the Emergencies department functions such as:

• Declaration of levels and plan activation: declaration of emergency situations or phases (pre-emergency, emergency levels 0, 1, 2, etc.), activating the corresponding special forest fire plan.
• Political direction of the emergency: assuming political and civil protection direction of all regional means, while technical direction of extinction falls to a designated extinction director (usually from fire services or forest agents).
• Mobilization of extraordinary resources: decision on reinforcement of means, request for support from other autonomous communities or the State (Military Emergency Unit, state aerial means), and coordination of these supports within the activated plan.
• Measures affecting the population: adoption or proposal of civil protection measures affecting citizens (preventive evacuations, confinements, access restrictions, road closures), usually through coordination bodies (CECOP/CECOPI).
• Relationship with the regional government: continuous information to the president and the Government Council, proposal of declarations of emergency zones or adoption of exceptional economic and social measures linked to the disaster.

Coordination and strategic planning functions

Beyond the immediate operation, legislation usually assigns the councilor of Emergencies a key role in medium- and long-term strategy:

• Post-fire evaluation: promotion of evaluation reports and lessons learned analyses after major fires, to review protocols and improve future response.
• Training and professionalization: planning of training for commanders and operational personnel in emergencies and civil protection, including drills and specific exercises on forest fires.
• Budget planning: proposal of budgets and investment programs in infrastructure, means, and technology for prevention and extinction.
• Relations with the State and the EU: participation in state emergency coordination bodies and, if applicable, management of European funds aimed at prevention and resilience against fires.

Limits of the response and need to specify the community

Without access to the specific regional law text or specific normative references, no more detailed information is available in the consulted sources. The denomination “councilor of Emergencies” and the precise distribution of functions (for example, whether forest competence lies in Environment, Interior, or a mixed department) varies between communities. To precisely identify the competencies “according to regional legislation,” it would be necessary to know which autonomous community is involved and consult its civil protection/emergencies law and its forest or forest fire prevention and extinction law.

The available sources do not provide a clear and closed statistical series of the number of forest fires “of similar characteristics” (that is, large fires with hundreds or thousands of hectares and evacuations) in the Valencian Community in recent years, so an exact and reliable figure cannot be given. However, they do allow contextualizing that the Community is one of the Spanish territories where, by affected surface, large fires can reach thousands of hectares and have a strong social impact. In 2026, for example, the Vall d’Uixó fire and the Soneja-Azuébar fire illustrate this pattern of major emergencies well. For an accurate count of episodes and hectares burned per year, one would have to consult the detailed statistics of the Generalitat and the Ministry for the Ecological Transition.

What is meant by “fires of similar characteristics”

At the state level, a large forest fire is usually considered one that exceeds 500 hectares burned. The Ministry of the Interior and MITECO use this category in their reports, as seen in the note highlighting that in 2024 there were 17 large forest fires in Spain and detailing the national set of incidents and affected surface (Interior note 2024).

Additionally, the Valencian Community has many areas of urban-forest interface, where the forest is very close to inhabited centers. This multiplies evacuations and social impact, even in smaller fires. The Ministry itself emphasizes that the Valencian Community is one of the autonomous communities where large fires can reach thousands of hectares favored by heat, drought, and wind, as recalled by the newspaper Demócrata in an analysis on fire management (article on fire management).

Recent examples in the Valencian Community

In the absence of a complete official table by years in the consulted sources, several recent high-impact fires in the Community are identified:

• Vall d’Uixó fire (Castellón, summer 2026): Demócrata describes it as one of the main forest emergencies of the summer in Spain, with the fire “beyond extinguishing capacity” and thousands of people evacuated (Demócrata report). Another text from the same media raises the burned area to about 4,300 hectares and describes the reinforcement of state and regional means (fire follow-up).
• Soneja–Azuébar fire (Castellón, 2026): Demócrata reports that the fire affected the surroundings of the Sierra de Espadán and burned around 180–183 hectares, with a request for UME intervention and evacuated neighbors (UME request and active fires balance).
• Ontinyent (Valencia, 2024): Interior highlights preventive evacuations affecting about 1,520 people due to a forest fire in Ontinyent, one of the episodes with the greatest impact on the population that year, although the burned area is not detailed in these notes (2024 surface balance and 2025 campaign extension).

To these cases must be added numerous smaller fires but with high risk due to their proximity to homes. For example, the 112 phone and the Forest Firefighters Service participate recurrently in dozens of interventions each campaign, as described in the 2024 Fallas balance (112CV note).

The Valencian Community in the Spanish context

Comparatively, Demócrata reports that, according to the latest budgets, the Valencian Community is among the autonomous communities that invest the most in prevention and extinction, with 298.47 million euros in 2026 (investment ranking). Another specific piece on emergencies in the Community details 139 million for AVSRE, 79 million for firefighters and SGISE, and 21 million for actions linked to the DANA, highlighting the regional budgetary effort (emergencies budget).

In parallel, the Generalitat has strengthened its monitoring and prevention system: it has a network of 66 forest monitoring observatories and has deployed 270 preventive monitoring resources, according to its own notes (Gátova observatory and reinforcement of preventive monitoring). It also promotes a monthly prevention bulletin (prevention bulletin), awareness campaigns such as “Stop al Foc” (Stop al Foc campaign), and specific aid to municipalities for forest management and prevention (7.9 million euros for 418 municipalities, according to the Municipal Strategic Fund).

Even the regional political debate reflects concern about the increase and severity of these fires: Compromís, for example, has proposed in Les Corts to allocate the entire bullfighting budget to reinforce emergencies and fire-fighting resources, in the context of fires like Soneja (Compromís proposal).

Data limitations and where to consult exact figures

The consulted sources do not offer a breakdown count of the number of large forest fires in the Valencian Community year by year, nor a table with hectares burned by community. They do provide the national context (for example, that in 2025 1.28% of the national forest area was affected by fires, according to the INE Environmental Indicators Panel) and some specific Valencian cases.

To know exactly how many forest fires “of similar characteristics” to the Vall d’Uixó fire have occurred in recent years in the Valencian Community, the safest way is to consult the complete statistics of the General Directorate of Forest Fire Prevention of the Generalitat (which are disseminated through its bulletins and annual reports) and the General Forest Fire Statistics of MITECO, which breaks down incidents and surface by autonomous community. No further information is available in the consulted sources.