As the danger from wildfires begins to wane in Spain, I think it’s safe to say that, looking back, this has been a particularly horrid year for fires. From the devastating blazes that tore through huge areas of the country during the summer to the tragic loss of life, the scale of what has happened is only becoming clearer as the figures come in. Spain has now recorded 296,815 hectares of land burned between January 1 and September 16, according to the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS), part of the EU’s Copernicus programme.

That means Spain accounts for 44.4 per cent of all the land burned by wildfires across the European Union this year.  For people living in Spain, the number is difficult to picture. Nearly 300,000 hectares is an area so vast that it goes well beyond individual fires or isolated rural communities. It represents forests, scrubland, farmland and countryside that have been transformed by flames in a single year.

Almost half of the EU total

Spain is not actually the country that has recorded the most individual fires. Italy has had 605, compared with Spain’s 446, while France has recorded 364. What sets Spain apart is the sheer amount of land those fires have destroyed.  Across the EU, 668,035 hectares had burned by September 16. Spain’s 296,815 hectares therefore account for almost half of the European total.The figures also show just how concentrated some of this year’s destruction has been.

The worst period came during July, when huge fires swept through several parts of Spain. By July 5, the country had already recorded 50,750 hectares burned, more than twice the area recorded by the same date in 2025. Among the tragedies was the fire at Los Gallardos in Almería, which claimed 15 lives in total. Later that month, fires affecting Madrid, Ávila and Toledo burned more than 77,000 hectares between them. 

A terrible year, but not worse than 2025

There is an important comparison to make when looking at this year’s numbers. Spain has actually burned less land so far in 2026 than it had at the same point last year. On September 2, Copernicus recorded 295,720 hectares burned in Spain, compared with 380,877 hectares on the same date in 2025.  That difference continued to show in the latest figures. Only 973 hectares were added to Spain’s total between September 2 and September 16, with 313 of those hectares recorded since September 9.  

But that does little to make this year’s figure look reassuring, the 296,815 hectares already burned are more than three times Spain’s 2006-2025 annual average of 87,212.8 hectares. And 2025 itself ended with 393,079 hectares burned, making it the worst year for burned land in Spain since 1994.  So while 2026 is currently below last year’s extraordinary total, it has still been an exceptionally destructive fire season.

The damage will last far longer than the fires

For residents in areas affected by the blazes, the end of the immediate danger does not mean everything simply goes back to normal. People who were evacuated have had to return to homes surrounded by burned countryside. Rural businesses have faced disruption, while farmers have lost land, crops, grazing areas and, in some cases, livestock. Roads and access routes can also be affected by fires, while landscapes that residents and visitors know well can be changed almost overnight. There is also the longer process of dealing with the land left behind.

A blackened hillside may look empty immediately after a fire, but what happens next depends on the severity of the blaze, the vegetation that was there before and the weather that follows. Heavy rain can create another problem on burned slopes, where vegetation that would normally help hold the soil in place has disappeared. That makes the aftermath particularly important for rural parts of Spain, where residents can spend months or years living alongside the consequences of a major fire.

Spain still has fires to watch

The latest Copernicus figures show that the pace of new land being burned has slowed considerably, but the wildfire season is not something that can simply be written off as soon as the worst summer temperatures pass. There were still fires being dealt with in Spain this week. In Valencia, the Tuéjar fire was stabilised after burning around 835 hectares, while authorities were investigating its origin. 

In Huelva, the Alcolea de Alosno fire was brought under control on September 16, with firefighters and other emergency personnel remaining in the area to deal with the aftermath.  For now, though, the headline figure remains 296,815 hectares. Spain has suffered fewer fires than Italy this year, and less burned land than it had at the same point in 2025. Even so, almost three hundred thousand hectares have already gone up in flames, accounting for 44.4 per cent of all the land burned across the EU.

What if your local supermarket was more than somewhere to buy the weekly shop? What if the same place could also help supply meals to schools, nurseries and care homes, support local farmers and even have a community kitchen where people could learn to cook?

That is the idea now being put forward in Spain, where more than 50 organisations are backing a campaign for a national network of public supermarkets. And this time, the proposal goes far beyond putting groceries on supermarket shelves. 

The community kitchen at the heart of the proposal

The community kitchens are one of the most striking parts of the plan. According to the manifesto published by Justicia Alimentaria, proposed public supermarkets could incorporate kitchens linked to public food purchasing, preparing healthy meals for schools, nurseries, care homes and social dining facilities. That would connect the supermarket directly with public services that already need to buy and prepare large quantities of food.

The organisation says the kitchens could also create employment and help keep more food-related economic activity within local communities.  So rather than simply creating another place to buy a bag of potatoes or a bottle of olive oil, the proposal envisages a system in which food is bought, prepared and distributed through connected public facilities.

It would be a whole food network

The supermarket would only be one part of the proposed system. Justicia Alimentaria says the network could also include food collection centres, purchasing centres, public-community bakeries and workshops, central kitchens and logistics hubs. These food hubs could operate at neighbourhood or district level, connecting local producers with supermarkets and public institutions such as schools, social care facilities and community dining services. 

That could also change the role of municipal markets. Justicia Alimentaria has already campaigned for existing markets to be transformed into local food centres rather than remaining places focused solely on retail. Its proposals include community kitchens, cooperative workshops, shared logistics and spaces for food education.  The latest supermarket proposal therefore builds on an idea the organisation has been developing for some time: using existing public food infrastructure as part of a more connected local system.

What would happen inside?

The proposed supermarkets would also have a community and educational role. The manifesto suggests using them for cooking lessons, food-label education, activities for children and opportunities to learn more about food and cooking. That makes the vision quite different from a conventional supermarket where customers arrive, fill a trolley and leave.

Justicia Alimentaria describes the proposed model as something closer to a combination of a municipal market, community centre and public food service. It also suggests a public-community management model, with rules covering issues such as local purchasing, employment conditions, fresh produce, ecological criteria and access for people who need support. 

Local farmers would be part of it too

The proposal is also designed to change where the food comes from. The manifesto calls for public supermarkets to prioritise local and proximity production, while supporting farmers, livestock producers and fishers. It also proposes reducing unnecessary intermediaries and increasing transparency around how food prices are formed.  

For the community kitchens, that could mean local produce being channelled directly into meals served through public facilities rather than simply being sold to individual shoppers. The organisation has previously proposed connecting municipal markets with public purchasing networks supplying schools, social and healthcare facilities, while creating local logistics hubs to support those services. 

Could an old market become a new food hub?

One of the more unusual aspects of the proposal is that Spain would not necessarily need to start from scratch. Justicia Alimentaria points to the country’s existing network of municipal markets and other public infrastructure that could potentially be adapted.

Its separate campaign calls for municipal markets to become centres of local food activity, incorporating community kitchens, cooperative workshops, shared logistics and food education.  The proposed network could therefore involve transforming some existing spaces rather than simply building new supermarkets from the ground up.

This is still a proposal

There is no national network of these supermarkets currently being created. Justicia Alimentaria is calling for a state law establishing the network and says more than 50 organisations have already joined its manifesto, including Greenpeace and Ecologistas en Acción. The organisation says it intends to gather further signatures and endorsements before taking the proposal to Parliament.  The manifesto also says public supermarkets would not be intended to replace private shops. Instead, the proposed network would establish what Justicia Alimentaria calls a minimum guarantee of access to healthy, fresh and affordable food, particularly in places where access is limited. 

That leaves some very practical questions still to be answered, including how the kitchens would be funded and managed, which existing buildings could be used and how the proposed network would operate alongside Spain’s existing food businesses and public services. But the community kitchens show that this latest proposal is about considerably more than opening a few government-run supermarkets. The ambition is to create an entire public food network, from the farmer producing the ingredients to the kitchen preparing the meal, and eventually to the child eating lunch at school or the resident sitting down to dinner in a care home.

There is a reason Spain is now Five Guys’ most successful European market. People cannot get enough of those juicy burgers, generous fries and sugary sweet shakes, but for the chain, keeping portions unchanged during a period of soaring beef prices came at a steep cost. Here is how the burger giant hit record revenue while navigating an 83% drop in profits.

Record year for sales

Five Guys Spain has just smashed through the €100 million mark for the first time ever. Sales hit €105.9 million in 2025, up 10.4 per cent on the year before. That’s a huge deal for a brand that only landed in Spain back in 2016, and it means Spain is now the best-performing market Five Guys has anywhere in Europe, even though it’s one of the smallest countries the chain operates in.

Big knock in profits

Interestingly though more sales didn’t mean more money in the bank. Net profit dropped to just €698,327, a massive 83.2 per cent fall from the €4.16 million made the year before. Operating profit also slid, down 26.9 per cent to €4.9 million. The reason, beef got a lot more expensive, and rather than pass that cost onto customers, Five Guys chose to eat into its own margins instead. Recipes and portions stayed exactly the same, and toppings and sauces are still free.

A small price rise, but nothing else changed

Back in May 2025, the chain did slightly bump up its menu prices, roughly in line with inflation, just to help protect those margins. It’s keen to stress that nothing else changed. No smaller portions, no reformulated recipes, no charging extra for sauce. That’s a contrast to several other restaurant brands in Spain that have trimmed portions or added new charges over the past year.

Could you soon have one near you?

Only three new restaurants opened in 2025, a much slower pace than the eleven the year before, taking the total to 43 across Spain. New spots opened in Malaga and Benidorm, with Andalucia flagged as a particular focus for growth. Last month, Five Guys opened its first airport location, at Barcelona’s El Prat, hinting at more travel-hub openings to come. Next year, expect fresh openings across several regions, including the Balearic Islands. Since first arriving in Spain, the chain has opened an average of seven restaurants a year (aside from the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021), and bosses say that pace is set to pick up again from 2026 onwards, both on the mainland and the islands. Soon you could be tucking into that huge pile of seasoned fries and sipping on one of there shakes at a location near you.