Put out economic fires outside of the campaign to be able to reach the summer fires financially alive. Forest firefighters belonging to private companies awarded the contract have begun to receive dismissal letters after: five deaths (two firefighters) and more than 150,000 hectares devastated. Those affected, about 2,000 of the 5,000 members of the contingent, assume the cessation and wait for new hires in 2026, maintaining the monetary and labor pulse as best they can: many are studying national or regional competitive examinations, seeking stability; Others take temporary jobs to weather the Sepe (State Public Employment Service) and some are directly resting because they are on medical leave, having lost their backs in August. So, years. The , longed for in summer, and train to the maximum.
Alejandro García, 25, spreads his notes, manuals, folders, pens and highlighters in the library of a university in León. García is studying how to be a firefighter: today they concern the regulations of the Forestry Law and care of the mountains and their forest environment in Castilla y León. This worker has just concluded his contractual relationship with the private company after his second campaign among flames and now focuses on two keys to the job: gym and brooding. He, a senior technician in forestry management, aspires to pass the opposition for forestry agent of the Board, although there is still no date for the call and he could not appear the previous one because he had not finished his degree. Now he has an exercise in perseverance and tempering revolutions in long days of study: “I wish we had contracts all year round and finally a well-organized life, and not without knowing if they are going to call you to work the following summer.”
This lack of work balance is known to José Luis Fernández Campano, also from Leon, who has been working as an interim for 26 of his 56 years at the fire surveillance post in Manzaneda de Torío (León), from where this summer he warned of two outbreaks. Campano has passed the silver anniversary surrounded by summer smoke and the classic precariousness of the group, now condemned to make do until the heat returns. He also works for an entertainment agency that organizes celebrations in towns as well as the Lion Rock Fest festival in León, where he has been working these days to get everything ready. Before, he dedicated his months without binoculars to brick until the bubble also burned; Other years were dedicated to taking care of his deceased mother and resin gave him occupation for some time but in the meantime he has not consolidated his forestry function. “Since October 16, I have been unemployed,” he says. Other years they called him again on April 16 but this one, although at the moment he knows nothing. Campano comments that the security guards are being hired for more months but that now, in the low season of danger, they barely have a fuss and are recruited for operational functions such as cleaning roads where vehicles—private because they do not provide transportation—get frequently stuck: “There is a lot of work to do but nothing is done.” In essence, criticism, both for last summer and for the promises of the Board: they have announced, that is, contracting with public companies with worse conditions than the regional brigades.
“My life is one of total uncertainty,” comments the lookout. He has won two lawsuits against the Board, he affirms, because they unceremoniously fired him after 17 consecutive campaigns and in another case he managed to get them to pay him three-year terms that were denied: “Now I am going to complain to them that after 2022 they promised that in 2025 we would all be hired, and nothing of that, either you go to court or else nothing.” “I’m not looking forward to retiring but my idea is to retire in the mountains, it’s very exciting and here I’ve seen everything and everything has happened to me,” Campano sighs, with salaries barely above 1,200 euros per month. Javier Galán, also from Leon, picks up the phone from the horizontal position of the sofa on the same day he received the end of his contract. “He arrived before the payroll,” he points out, while waiting for a date to undergo surgery for an inguinal hernia that tortured him in the summer and that he tried to control with a girdle, as EL PAÍS confirmed in a fire, “to help and not leave the people, the company, and out of personal conviction.”
The 42-year-old man had to go to the Social Security Emergency Room because his company’s mutual insurance company denied him the occupational disease. “It is an illness due to common contingencies and I am left with 70% of the benefit, that is, one hand in front and one behind,” says Galán, who will hopefully start working in March in his helicarried unit to do preventive work. “I could work in a forestry company owned by a colleague, my idea was a month of unemployment and rest and then work on something related to the forest so as not to lose confidence, if you leave the forest you will notice it a lot,” explains the firefighter, emphasizing the importance of working in wood with machinery or doing brush-cutting work with a chainsaw or machines. Other colleagues study or are dedicated to the pine forests or the beehives: “Those of us who do not have annual contracts make a living; if you are not in the operation, it is important to maintain contact with the forest and have physical effort and training.”
EL PAÍS has contacted a dozen brigade members who reinforce these lines: either they or their colleagues get into transition work or study competitive exams. One trains as a lifeguard, another takes care of livestock in his town, another gets into trouble… A worker from Valladolid who requests anonymity, because they fear that the contractors will punish those who protest, has joined the contingent for the first time this year at the age of 24. He liked it and plans to continue although “they gave him a course that was useless” and after 10 days they sent him “without having seen a fire before.” “I have to be unemployed for them to call me again, there is no job bank and if I find a job it would be temporary,” he adds. The young man studies at home for a regional competition for mountain laborer and extinction, but he does not know when the next competition will be; In fact, he knows that he will be fired because a colleague of his will take his place but he has not even received an official message.
