Former mayor is killed trying to defend Portuguese town from wildfire inferno - as apocalyptic blazes rip through Europe, ravaging Spain and Greece turning them into a burning hellscape
President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa offered his 'heartfelt condolences' to Carlos Damaso, a victim of a fire he was fighting in his parish, asking that the current mayor of Guarda pass them on to his family.
Mr Rebelo de Sousa added that he had cut short his holidays and returned to the presidential palace, joining a meeting of the National Emergency and Civil Protection Authority.
For numerous days now, several thousand firefighters have been battling fires in various parts of the country.
Like its neighbour Spain, Portugal has invoked the EU's civil protection mechanism to ask for help, requesting four firefighting aircraft to use until Monday, the presidency said on X.
Apocalyptic scenes have spread across Europe as dramatic wildfires bathe the countryside sickly orange, with blazes ravaging Portugal, Spain and Greece.
One horrifying photo taken in the Sernancelhe district of Viseu, Portugal, shows a raging inferno and dark clouds of smoke threatening to completely submerge a house in flames.
The sky is completely amber as an angry blaze continues to tear its way through the forest, making the air thick with smog.
Nearly 4,000 firefighters are battling seven major fires across the country, in Tabuaço, Trancos, Sirarelhos, Sátão, Arganil, Vilarinho do Monte and Ermidas do Sado.
Authorities extended the state of alert until Sunday, amid high temperatures expected to last through the weekend.
'We are being cooked alive, this cannot continue,' said Vila Real Mayor Alexandre Favaios, where a fire had been burning for 10 days.
It comes as another heatwave pushes temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) across parts of Europe.
Global warming is giving the Mediterranean region hotter, drier summers, scientists say, with wildfires surging each year and sometimes whipping up into 'whirls'.
Firefighters in Spain and Greece continued to battle wildfires Friday on a public holiday in all three countries as persistent hot, dry conditions challenged efforts to contain the blazes.
Spain was fighting 14 major fires. Temperatures were expected to climb over the weekend.
'Today will once again be a very tough day, with an extreme risk of new fires,' Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez wrote on X.
The national weather agency AEMET warned of extreme fire risk in most of the country, including where the largest blazes were burning in the north and west.
A heatwave which brought temperatures exceeding 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) on several days this month was expected to last through Monday.
Fires in the Galicia region forced the closure of several highways. The high speed rail line connecting it to Spain's capital, Madrid, remained suspended.
The fires in Spain this year have burned 158,000 hectares or 610 square miles, according to the European Union ´s European Forest Fire Information System. That is an area roughly as big as metropolitan London.
Spanish authorities reported the death of a 37-year-old volunteer firefighter who sustained severe burns in an area north of Madrid this week. It was the third reported death in Spain due to the recent fires.
Thousands of people were evacuated from their homes in the region and still can not return.
Temperatures reached 44 C (111 F) in some regions, according to meteorology service AEMET, with minimal rainfall and windy conditions expected to exacerbate the fire risk.
In both Spain and Portugal it was the Feast of the Assumption, a major Catholic holiday usually marked by family gatherings and religious processions.
A wildfire in Greece burned out of control for a fourth day on the island of Chios, prompting several more overnight evacuations.
Two water-dropping planes and two helicopters were operating in the north of the island in the eastern Aegean Sea, where local authorities said a lull in high winds was helping firefighters early Friday.
Following a series of large fires in western Greece earlier this week, the Fire Service was on alert Friday outside Athens and nearby areas in the south of the country where adverse weather conditions elevated the fire risk.
The fire service said a major blaze outside the southern port city of Patras has been contained on the outskirts of urban areas after a large-scale deployment.
Three people have been arrested in connection with the fire, which authorities said may have been deliberately set.
A man also died in a fire in Albania, while a 61-year-old Hungarian seasonal worker is suspected to have died of heat-related causes while picking fruit in Lleida, in Spain's eastern Catalonia region.
The spiritual leader of the world´s Orthodox Christians Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew expressed solidarity on Friday with the victims of wildfires in southern Europe during prayers for the Dormition of the Virgin Mary, an important religious holiday for Orthodox Christians.
A drop in wind speeds on Thursday allowed firefighting aircraft in the three hard-hit countries to step up water drops, concentrating on existing fire zones rather than chasing fast-moving fronts.
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As politicians engage in blame games, experts warn, once again, that all the bickering over the number of water-dumping planes misses the point. The current spate of fires, they add, was entirely predictable and underlines the need for a fundamental rethink of land use and management in a continent that is on the frontline of the climate emergency. 'This year's fires are basically on the same level as those we saw in 2022 and 2023,' says Marc Castellnou, the head of forestry for the Catalan regional fire department and a fire analyst at the University of Lleida. 'Since 2017, we've seen this change towards more extreme fires … It's nothing new – and it's happening because climate change is bringing higher temperatures for much longer periods.' The dynamics are not hard to discern. 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'If things took a turn for the worse 50 years ago, we can now start changing them for the better,' she says. 'But you can't think that starting to change things now will pay off within two summers because that isn't true. These things are processes.' There are, however, already some signs that the message is getting through. After the Horta de Sant Joan fire 16 years ago, a group of shepherds approached the Catalan fire department to ask what they could do to prevent more blazes. The result was the Ramats de Foc (Fire Flocks) scheme, in which shepherds coordinate with firefighters to graze flocks of sheep and goats in areas with a high density of undergrowth and therefore high risk of fire. In areas cleared by the ruminants, firefighters have better access and, as there is less undergrowth, it is also easier to bring fires under control should they break out. 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Arcarons says that depopulation – and decreasing dependence on woodlands for building material and grazing since the 1960s – has caused what was once a patchwork of vineyards, olive groves and wheat fields to revert to dense forest. Fast-growing and highly flammable pines dominated, undergrowth flourished and this, combined with climate change and more frequent and longer periods of drought, has led to fires that are extremely difficult to control. 'It's like a chimney,' says Arcarons. 'If you keep throwing wood on the fire eventually the chimney will catch fire and the house will burn down.' Castellnou agrees that without adapting our landscapes to the realities of climate breakdown, we are sealing our fate. 'There's no point talking about more aeroplanes,' he says. 'If we limit our capacity for extinguishing fires by thinking we just need enough equipment to put them out then we're creating an unsustainable, artificial situation for summer after summer of extreme weather.'
