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A local honey producer is positioned on a elevated area near the tiny community of a rural settlement.

He points to the very spot where an electrical storm hit a few weeks earlier, causing a inferno with disastrous results.

"The past month has been a calamity for me individually, but also for nearby producers and the whole community in the village," he states. "At 47 years old and I've never seen a fire that violent."

It ended up destroying over 20,000 hectares of land and forcing thousands of people to be evacuated from villages in this agriculturally rich corner of the Iberian northwest.

Yet it constituted just one among many vast conflagrations which have heavily impacted Spain this season, destroying 0.8% of the country's territory.

The severely impacted areas were situated in the western north, including the provinces of Castilla y León and a coastal area, plus the western region of Extremadura.

Consequences for Apiculture

Beekeeping, which is an vital industry in rural north-west Spain, was one of the key victims of the summer.

Luckily, his own apiaries are intact, because the fire halted just yards away from the fields where he houses them.

"I project that this year I'm going to miss out on 50% of my honey production, at the very least, because of the fires, and the next year the same, or even more damaging," the producer says.

The non-existence of physical damage to his hives means he does not qualify for insurance.

He is contemplating moving many of them elsewhere, in the aim of improving the bees' odds of survival and lessening his future losses.

Cattle Ranchers Similarly Harmed

Many livestock farmers have also been compelled to move their animals in recent weeks, both to escape fires and to make certain they can access undamaged pasture.

"Conditions were disastrous for farmers [this summer], it was one fire after another," says a rancher from a border village.

He suffered the death of around 30 livestock this summer, most recently having to put down 11 animals which had suffered severe burns.

"All of this has had a big monetary impact, but the biggest impact of all is that we can't sleep at night," he says. "It is a constant anxiety."

While farmers look forward to receive insurance compensation, he fears there will be a knock-on cost.

"Insurance could cover us, but next year, rather than costing us, for example, €5,000, insurance premiums will cost €10,000 or €15,000," he predicts. "Since insurance companies seek to avoid to lose money."

Economic Impact and Visitor Sector Losses

A farming organization calculated in August that the industry had incurred damages worth at least €600m.

The largest costs have been destroyed fields and properties and losses of animals.

A further main economic sufferer of this summer's fires has been tourism, which represents 13% of Spanish GDP.

Even if most of the coastal areas which are tourism escaped fires this summer, the southerly province of a tourist hotspot was an outlier.

Moreover this summer's main wildfire epicenters, in the west and north-west, have cultivated rural tourism in the past few years.

A major natural attraction, the largest glacial lake in the the peninsula, is a major local draw.

However the expansion of the fire that began in the locality in August caused it to be evacuated.

"In August, this area was at full capacity in terms of tourism," says a local official. "Subsequently, on 18 August, it dropped down to 10% of capacity."

For holidaymakers this was disruptive. But for many inhabitants it equated to financial catastrophe.

"The administration has said it will pay me €5,500," he says, sarcastically. "They must come up with some other kind of payment because I was opposed to close, they compelled me to."

Broader Community Effects

The recent season has highlighted the well-known schism between metropolitan and countryside Spain.

Years of migration from rural areas to metropolises means that 90% of the Spanish population now resides in just 30% of its land.

The rest has become known as "empty Spain", where a sparse population has often complained about a absence of infrastructure.

The fires, which have been particularly uncontainable this year, only worsen that frustration.

"It's hard enough as it is to survive because of the price of animal feed and fuel – every day it's more hard for farmers to make ends meet," he comments. "Furthermore, this occurs."