How wild horses are preventing wildfires in Spain

The animals roam more than 5,700 hectares of public forest, reducing the volume of combustible vegetation in the landscape

Photo collage of wild horses galloping through fields of yellow gorse flowers
In 2023, the conservation group Rewilding Spain introduced a herd of 10 horses to the Iberian Highlands
(Image credit: Illustration by Julia Wytrazek / Getty Images)

Wild horses have become a new and unlikely defence against bush fires in the Iberian Highlands.

Recent summers have brought a rampage of wildfires to Europe but with the hottest months approaching again, ecologists hope that horses could play a significant role in reducing the risk.

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  Chas Newkey-Burden has been part of The Week Digital team for more than a decade and a journalist for 25 years, starting out on the irreverent football weekly 90 Minutes, before moving to lifestyle magazines Loaded and Attitude. He was a columnist for The Big Issue and landed a world exclusive with David Beckham that became the weekly magazine’s bestselling issue. He now writes regularly for The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent, Metro, FourFourTwo and the i new site. He is also the author of a number of non-fiction books.