This summer, devastating wildfires swept across Europe, with Spain and Portugal hit hardest. As extreme weather becomes more common, the restoration of natural grazing can help prevent the build-up of flammable vegetation and reduce the severity, scale, and impact of fires.
The Iberian Peninsula in flames
Exhausted firefighters with soot-streaked faces slump against their vehicles as villages are reduced to blackened husks and horizons glow red with flames — stark images of wildfires that have become a hallmark of Europe’s ever hotter summers. So far this year, a record one million hectares have burned across the EU, the worst season since records began in 2006. Spain and Portugal have been hit hardest, with wildfires scorching roughly 500,000 hectares — or 1% — of the entire Iberian Peninsula.
“The fires on the peninsula have skyrocketed this summer,” says Carolina Soto-Navarro, Head of Wilder Nature at Rewilding Europe. “This not only has huge ecological repercussions, with many natural areas burning — including critical national parks and reserves in northern Spain — but also enormous social consequences: fatalities, evacuations, families losing homes and land they depend on, and a massive surge in CO₂ emissions.”
A case in point: the Greater Côa Valley
The Rewilding Portugal team have first-hand experience of the damage and danger catastrophic wildfires can cause. In August, a series of outbreaks swept through the Greater Côa Valley rewilding landscape, devastating 10% of its 318,000 hectares. At the Ermo das Águias rewilding site — where semi-wild Sorraia horses have been released — nearly 300 hectares, or a quarter of the area, were affected by the flames.
Nevertheless, what happened at Ermo das Águias clearly shows how natural grazing can limit wildfire impact and strengthen resilience.
“What we observed was that the fire advanced more slowly and erratically across the native, low-lying vegetation kept short by the Sorraia horses, which were only introduced two years ago,” explains Rewilding Portugal team leader Pedro Prata. “Unlike in vast plantations filled with non-native tree species such as eucalyptus or pine — where flames spread rapidly and with great intensity — here nature showed its capacity to contain and slow the fire.”
Fewer wild grazers means more fuel
The extreme weather that fuelled blazes across Spain and Portugal this summer was made 40 times more likely by climate breakdown, early analysis suggests. These wildfires were also 30% more intense than scientists would have expected in a world without climate change, according to researchers from the World Weather Attribution network.
While climate change is increasing the frequency, scale and impact of fires, it isn’t the only reason that wildfires on the Iberian Peninsula are spiralling out of control. Underlying conditions relating to rural depopulation and the accumulation of combustible vegetation are also a critical factor.
As farmers and shepherds across the Iberian Peninsula have increasingly migrated to cities in recent decades, such vegetation has spread across the forests, meadows, orchards, and croplands they once tended — creating vast amounts of fuel for wildfires. In Spain alone, government figures estimates that 2.3 million hectares of land now lie unused across the country, while the number of active farms has dropped by more than 30,000 since 2016.
Natural grazing: a proactive solution
Too often, efforts to combat catastrophic wildfires focus on extinguishing flames once land is already ablaze, even though prevention is far more cost-effective. Rewilding offers a proven and proactive alternative: restoring free-roaming large herbivores such as semi-wild horses and Tauros to keep flammable vegetation in check. By creating patchier landscapes that act as natural firebreaks, these grazers limit the spread and severity of fires when they break out, which is why they are often described as “grazing fire brigades“.
The condition of European forests is fundamental to the growing risk of wildfires, with two key factors at play. Historically, large wild grazes such as aurochs, wild horses, and red deer played a vital role maintaining semi-open woodlands across the Mediterranean, while species such as bison and elk shaped forests further north and east. By consuming and trampling vegetation, these animals created space for regeneration and influenced forest structure, making landscapes more resilient to fire. With many of these species now absent or restricted to small populations, this natural resilience has been greatly diminished.
A second challenge is the spread of monoculture plantations, particularly those containing flammable, non-native species such as pine and eucalyptus. These dense, uniform forests, which are very common across Europe, are highly vulnerable to extreme heat and drying, further heightening wildfire risk.
Rural depopulation and the associated decline in livestock grazing present a unique opportunity to rewild European forests. By recovering complex forest ecosystems — characterised by a diverse mix of native tree species and abundant herds of wild herbivores — at a scale of many millions of hectares, we can rebuild wildfire resilience. As architects of these ecosystems, such herbivores not only serve as natural fire brigades, but also facilitate natural regeneration, enhance biodiversity, and boost carbon storage.
A case in point: the Iberian Highlands
The Iberian Highlands rewilding landscape in Spain offers a powerful example of what this approach can achieve. In Solanillos, where a wildfire 20 years ago devastated 13,000 hectares and claimed the lives of 11 firefighters, a total of 83 Tauros and horses have so far been released by Rewilding Spain, in close collaboration with the municipality of Mazarete. Through their grazing and other interactions with the landscape, these animals are driving a transformation from pine-dominated forest to a more diverse, semi-open mosaic of oak woodland, grassland, and low scrub — boosting biodiversity and fire resilience.
“After only three years, we can already see the impact of these large grazers on the vegetation, with more productive grassland, a reduction in the height of scrub, and the removal of young pines by Tauros — which creates space for native oaks to grow,” says Pablo Schapira, Team Leader of Rewilding Spain. “This is creating a far healthier and wildfire-resilient ecosystem.”
Holistic thinking
Because the drivers of wildfire are diverse and differ from one landscape to another, effectively minimising wildfire risk requires a holistic approach to land management.
The reintroduction of free-roaming herbivores is one of the few scalable, cost-effective tools for addressing the growing wildfire threat, although it is not a panacea.
“We need to think of these grazing fire brigades as baselines and buffers, rather than silver bullets,” says Carolina Soto-Navarro. “In parts of Iberia, many wildfires are still caused by people — through negligence, arson, machinery, and burning crop residues.
“Grazing by wild and semi-wild herbivores doesn’t prevent ignitions — it reduces the consequences once they happen. That’s why a holistic approach to land management — combining natural grazing with other measures, such as prescribed burning, mechanical shrub removal, surveillance, controlled extensive grazing with livestock and education — is the best solution.”
Natural grazing at scale is essential
Wildfires are a natural part of many ecosystems, but climate change means they are occurring more frequently and with greater intensity. Clearing millions of hectares of flammable vegetation is neither feasible nor desirable, as much of it supports habitat complexity and biodiversity. Restoring extensive livestock farming — where domestic herbivores graze in a role similar to their wild counterparts — could help, but fewer and fewer people are willing to take it up.
This is why rewilding — and natural grazing in particular — must be central to discussions on how best to confront the escalating wildfire threat. As part of a broader set of measures, grazing by free-roaming herbivores offers one of the most essential natural solutions. This applies not only to the Iberian Peninsula, but to landscapes across Europe where hotter summers and the accumulation of flammable vegetation are heightening fire risk — from Mediterranean forests to the Tarutino Steppe in Ukraine.
At the moment, rewilding herds rarely cover enough area or reach sufficient density to reduce flammable vegetation across entire landscapes. This means animals such as Tauros and wild horses have to be used strategically. To scale up their positive impact, it also means that larger herds need to be established across far greater areas.
“The adoption of natural grazing as a mainstream nature-based solution for tackling wildfires is critical if we want more diverse and resilient semi-open forests across Europe that can adapt to our changing climate,” says Carolina Soto-Navarro.
“The adoption of natural grazing as a mainstream nature-based solution for tackling wildfires is critical if we want more diverse and resilient semi-open forests across Europe that can adapt to our changing climate.”
Carolina Soto-Navarro
Head of Wilder Nature, Rewilding Europe
“Wild and semi-wild animals such as horses and Tauros work year-round to create mosaics of less flammable landscapes without the need for human management. They also enrich wild nature, strengthen climate resilience, and bring wider benefits for people. More research is needed, but evidence from places like the Greater Côa Valley and the Iberian Highlands shows that rewilding and natural grazing at scale can — and should — play a key role in preventing the kind of devastation seen on the Iberian Peninsula this summer from becoming an annual tragedy.”
Want to know more?
- Rewilding and climate
- Grazing fire brigades
- The importance of rewilding forests for climate and biodiversity