This summer’s wildfires are an open wound.
By Claudia Benitez
HoyLunes – How much nature and how many human creations have disappeared because of the wildfires of recent years? Each summer grows more intense, and with it, the destructive fire. Our lives are being transformed and, even if we refuse to acknowledge those changes, they are happening. Art reminds us of this reality, showing us that even in ashes there is the possibility of rebirth. Every mural painted in a ravaged town, every sculpture carved from burned wood, every photograph capturing the trace of fire is also a gesture of resistance.
Despite the impossibility of recovering what has been lost, the resilience of creation allows us to affirm that, while art cannot extinguish fires, it can illuminate their consequences. It allows us to feel, to understand, and to remember. And above all, it drives us to imagine a future in which creation overcomes annihilation.
Wildfires remind us of something we prefer to forget: nothing is guaranteed, not even what we believe to be eternal. It is not only mountains and animals that vanish; archives, collections, and small family treasures are also lost. A library can burn in minutes, a painting can be consumed by smoke, an entire lifetime of artistic work can disappear without a trace.
These are no longer isolated episodes. They have become a constant feature of contemporary summers, fueled by prolonged droughts, extreme heatwaves, and the global climate crisis. We tend to think of them as environmental tragedies—forests, wildlife, and homes destroyed—but they also consume part of our cultural heritage: buildings, libraries, and countless other creations vanish under the flames.
When a creation burns, it is not only an object that is lost. A memory, a story, a fragment of our collective identity is extinguished. A wildfire thus becomes an erasure of history. That void is as devastating as the forests turned to ash. And yet, from that void also arises the urgency to create again, to rename what has been lost, to hold memory in new forms.
At such moments, art becomes a mirror that forces us to confront the wound, but also a warning that demands responsibility. Art records and denounces. Artists do not limit themselves to portraying the flames as a visual spectacle: they transform catastrophe into testimony and build a new vision of our world.
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