Pedro Sánchez did not point fingers at anyone during his visit this Monday to the area affected by the Vall d’Uixó (Castellón) fire, which has burned more than 7,000 hectares. However, it became clear that the President of the Government was basically addressing the PP – which governs in the communities devastated by fires these days – when he once again insisted on the need to sign a “country agreement” against climate change.
“I ask, please, that we focus on prevention, and for that, I ask that we materialize once and for all a country agreement, a State pact against the climate emergency,” he said from the Advanced Command Post in the presence of the President of the Generalitat, the popular Juanfran Pérez Llorca; the Minister of Science, Diana Morant; the Government delegate, Pilar Bernabé; or the mayor of Vall d’Uixó, Tania Baños.
“We all have to be in prevention so that reconstruction [after the fires] is faster,” he insisted, not without first emphasizing that “the fires will go away, but every year we must be prepared for a climate emergency that is exceeding all levels and magnitudes that science has been warning about.”
But if Sánchez has focused on prevention, Llorca has focused on the response, that is, on reconstruction after the fire’s extinction. The Valencian president praised the “exemplary” coordination between administrations in the fire extinguishing tasks. “I also ask that we be so for recovery,” said the head of a Consell that has been criticizing the central government’s lack of collaboration since the 2024 DANA.
Sánchez, who in any case valued the “institutional cooperation” deployed for the extinction of the fire threatening the Sierra de Espadán in Castellón, warned that “difficult and complex hours remain.” “We are going to have an increase in temperatures in the coming hours and in the coming days,” he said, referring to the Aemet alert for a new heatwave in Spain starting on Wednesday.
“I ask for extreme caution throughout the country,” Sánchez reiterated, lamenting that so far in 2026, more than 170,000 hectares have already been burned in Spain, which means multiplying by six the area burned by this time in 2025.
In the case of the fire declared on Saturday in the Vall d’Uixó (Castellón), it has already exceeded 7,000 burned hectares, as confirmed this Monday by the Valencian Minister of Emergencies Juan Carlos Valderrama. Even so, firefighters have managed in recent hours to “contain” the spread of the fire, which by late Sunday had already burned 6,500 hectares after spreading over a perimeter of 67 kilometers threatening the Sierra de Espadán.
The fire, whose origin may have been intentional, keeps a total of 80,000 residents in the interior of the province of Castellón on edge, as the Generalitat has ordered confinement and evacuation measures to be maintained until 11:59 p.m. this Monday. In fact, the uncontrolled advance of the flames throughout the weekend forced the evacuation of 16,000 people from 18 towns and the confinement of another 64,000 from three Castellón municipalities: La Vall d’Uixó, Onda, and Betxí.
According to Valderrama in statements to À Punt, the latest flare-up of the fire occurred in the Eslida area, where about thirty aerial resources are focused this Monday morning, because there is a “significant risk of propagation.” The Monserrat urbanization in Betxí and Montí, on the other hand, concentrate the work of ground resources.
Along these lines, the Government delegate in the Valencian Community, Pilar Bernabé, has asked the population not to be complacent and to comply with security measures: “Not seeing fire or smoke does not mean that fire will not appear in a short period of time.” In any case, to reassure residents who cannot return to their homes, she highlighted that no looting or robberies have occurred.
The Minister of Emergencies has announced that the meteorological conditions expected for this Monday are very similar to those of Sunday, with southeast winds and gusts that can reach 30 kilometers per hour. The delegate warned that the wind “will generate situations of uncertainty” insofar as it can cause sudden changes in the direction of the flames. The opportunity to stabilize the fire will come from nightfall, when 70% humidity is expected to favor extinguishing efforts.
For his part, the Valencian president held a conversation with King Felipe VI on Sunday night, in which he conveyed the latest information about the Castellón fire. He confirmed this through a message on his social media. According to Llorca, the monarch conveyed his “recognition to all personnel working on the ground and his support for the evacuated and confined residents.”
The Government delegate insisted that “all lines of investigation” into the causes of the fire remain open. However, “it does not appear to have been due to natural causes.” Seprona’s main hypothesis is that the fire was intentional, as “no natural meteorological conditions that could have caused it have been observed.”
The President of the Generalitat took the opportunity to call for a debate on a possible toughening of penalties for environmental crimes. “If it is proven that there was human intentionality [in the Vall d’Uixó fire], I hope the full weight of the law falls upon them,” he stated.
