Four people died and thousands were evacuated in the country as a heatwave baked southern Europe last month, sparking a blame game between the Socialist government and the conservative opposition Popular Party (PP).
The Socialists say the PP failed to implement effective fire prevention policies in the regions it governs and played down climate change.
The PP blames the fires on arson and accuses the central government of withholding resources, including enough military support.
"We have had a clearly insufficient fire prevention policy," Sanchez said as he presented a "national pact against the climate emergency" in Madrid, citing a lack of firefighters, forest rangers and prediction tools.
These violent fires "are not extinguished in summer, they are put out in winter, in autumn, working every day of the year" to avoid emergencies during searing summer temperatures, Sanchez said.
The Socialist leader also highlighted "inadequate" land management that led to a "countryside full of biomass and without fire breaks", as well as "obsolete infrastructure".
The climate emergency was also to blame, Sanchez added, as scientists have long warned that human-driven global warming is increasing the length, frequency and intensity of episodes of extreme heat that fuel wildfires.
Wildfires in Spain have destroyed hundreds of thousands of hectares this year, mostly in August, according to the European Forest Fire Information System, surpassing the previous high of 306,000 hectares (756,000 acres) set in 2022 and marking a new annual record since reporting began in 2006.
Extreme summer heat a 'turning point': French minister
Paris (AFP) Sept 2, 2025 -
This year's punishing back-to-back heatwaves and ferocious wildfires in France were a "taste of what's to come", as climate change pushed summer temperatures to near record highs, the country's environment minister warned Tuesday.
Swathes of Europe have suffered deadly heatwaves, withering drought and vast forest fires in recent months, while countries across the world have recorded historic temperature spikes.
"We all know that the summer we are experiencing is in many ways a turning point," said France's Minister for Ecological Transition Agnes Pannier-Runacher.
"It's a taste of what's to come, unfortunately, because heatwaves will be more frequent and more intense in the coming years," she said at a press conference.
The summer of 2025 was France's third hottest since the country's weather agency Meteo France began measuring temperatures in 1900. It ranked second in terms of the number of heatwave days.
The country has also suffered devastating fires, with one that raged in the Mediterranean region seen as the worst blaze in at least half a century, according to government data on area burned.
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