I've heard that about 10% of the Earth's surface is on fire at any one time

Spain has lots of wildfires. The number of times they are started by people, both inadvertently and on purpose, is alarming. The farmers who burn stubble, the people who flick fag ends from cars and the people who light barbecues in the countryside are oddly surprised when it all gets out of hand. There are also arsonists who start fires for reasons best known to themselves and their doctors. Fires can also start naturally, a lightning strike being the most common cause. Just like those potholes on British roads, fire breaks all over Spain are suffering from lack of spending. What should be a difficult barrier for the flames to leap, a defensible line for fire fighters to hold, is so full of weeds and shrubs that it offers no real barrier and the fires grow and spread.

There have been several fires in the local area over the past week or so. On the national scale they have not been big and they have not spread widely but seeing smoke on the horizon and watching fire fighting helicopters fly overhead is a bit anxiety making.

Just three days ago there was a fire within a couple of kilometres of where we live. It was put out quickly but the local police chief reminded people that if land is not maintained adequately then the costs of putting out the fire will have to be borne by the landowner. The news of the fires got picked up by our village WhatsApp group and there was an exhortation from the Town Hall representative in the village, the local "mayoress", for people to put their house in order. The little land we have, the garden, is weed free but just outside our boundary there is a lot of long dry grass. We have tracks bordering our property on two sides which are, so far as I know, and our Spanish neighbours agree, the responsibility of the Town Hall. Both Maggie and I commented in the WhatsApp group in a way which clearly showed that we were far from happy about how our part of the village is routinely forgotten. That neglect includes not cutting the verges back. One way and another the exchanges became a bit tense.

Concerned by the recent spate of fires, and by the local inaction, Maggie decided that she would have a go at hacking those weeds down herself. Now, to be honest, the tools we have are not much use against deep rooted two metre high grass. We tried though and the next door neighbour joined in and brought out the small tractor that he uses to plough his orchard. In the end we took about 20 garden refuse sack size bag loads off the verge alongside our house. It's better but it's still not perfect.

Still dripping with sweat I contacted the people who have the refuse collection contract for the outlying villages of Pinoso. I told them that we had left the 20 sack loads of cuttings by the side of the communal bin. They came back to say that whilst they collect old furniture and other household stuff they don't deal with garden waste and that I'd have to sort that myself. I'm sure you can imagine what I thought about that. Fortunately though, this morning, our mayoress was on the case and she turned up with the appropriate bloke from the Town Hall. He said he would arrange for the weeds to be cut back and that he'd get the cuttings taken away.

So that's where it rests at the moment.