Spanish Donkeys Stop Doñana Fires for 9 Straight Years

While wildfires devastated nearly one million hectares of Spain by August 2025, one area stayed green thanks to an unlikely hero: the humble donkey.

Since 2014, 18 rescued donkeys have been quietly patrolling the edges of Doñana National Park. Their mission is simple: eat the dry brush that fuels wildfires before flames can spread.

The strategy is working. Doñana hasn't recorded a single forest fire in nine years.

Mortadelo, Magallanes, Leonor and Ainoa are part of this unusual brigade from El Burrito Feliz, a rescue organization. They graze up to seven hours daily between March and November, methodically clearing strips of land about 40 meters wide. Each day, they remove the vegetation that turns landscapes into tinderboxes during Spain's scorching summers.

Luis Manuel Bejarano, president of El Burrito Feliz, calls them "herbivorous firefighters." Unlike cows or sheep, donkeys can digest much drier, rougher vegetation. They eat the scrubby plants that help fires spread fastest.

The timing couldn't be better. Rising temperatures, drought and rural abandonment have left Spanish forests overgrown with fuel. When agricultural work became mechanized decades ago, donkeys largely disappeared from the countryside. Their absence contributed to the dangerous buildup of dry vegetation.

Now they're making a comeback across Spain. In Tivissa near Tarragona, a project that started with three donkeys in 2020 now has 40 animals protecting nearly 400 hectares. No fires have occurred in that area since the donkeys arrived.

In Allariz, donkeys equipped with GPS trackers cover up to 19 kilometers daily while grazing nearly 1,000 hectares within a biosphere reserve. Similar programs have launched in Catalonia, Galicia and the Basque Country.

The Ripple Effect

The donkey projects are doing more than preventing fires. They're reviving rural communities and creating jobs for volunteers who monitor the animals and bring them water in hard-to-reach areas. The Military Emergency Unit visited Doñana and symbolically adopted one of the firefighting donkeys. A local group called Mujeres por Doñana helps supervise the animals in zones vehicles can't access.

Rosa María Canals, an ecology professor at the Public University of Navarre, notes that donkey grazing reduces vegetation density and helps contain fires in increasingly dry landscapes. The animals offer a sustainable alternative to mechanical clearing, which requires fuel and maintenance.

Project leaders emphasize that donkeys aren't a complete solution. Forest planning and reducing highly flammable species like pine and eucalyptus remain essential. But in a country facing its worst fire season in three decades, these patient grazers prove that sometimes the oldest solutions work best.

Spain is protecting its future forests by bringing back a 7,000-year-old partnership.