A paradise is going up in smoke -- Podemos says it's no accident and who really is Behind the Flames?

Suspicious fires have ripped through the natural jewels of the Mar Menor in recent months, torching wetlands, destroying wildlife, and leaving blackened scars where once birds nested and fragile ecosystems thrived. Now, Podemos is pointing the finger at "vested interests" who, they claim, could be cashing in on the devastation.

The latest blaze broke out Thursday in Torre del Rame, right by Serena Golf in Los Alcázares -- just weeks after another fire gutted the La Hita wetland. Both areas are legally protected. Both are vital havens for migratory birds and rare vegetation. And both are now charred wastelands.

Regional deputy María Marín isn't buying the "bad luck" theory. "We no longer believe in coincidences," she declared. "We must ask who benefits when protected land is reduced to ash."

And here's the kicker: the blazes come hot on the heels of a controversial political move. The PP and Vox scrapped the urban development moratorium around the Mar Menor, a measure that had kept developers at bay. Suddenly, the land is freer, the fires are burning, and speculation whispers grow louder.

For environmentalists, the cost is staggering. Entire habitats gone in hours. Nesting sites lost for good. Plants that shield the lagoon's delicate balance, wiped out. "Each fire pushes the Mar Menor closer to collapse," conservation voices warn.

Podemos is demanding urgent action: the creation of a Laguna Salada Regional Park, with iron-clad protections against speculators, developers, and anyone else eyeing the lagoon's shores. Without it, Marín says, the Mar Menor will continue to be sacrificed -- "burning, both literally and figuratively."

The question lingers like smoke over the scorched earth: are these wildfires... or a wildfire cover-up for something bigger, and if so, how long will it be before the builders start to move in?