5 days ago
Wildfires fuelled by heatwave hit tourism spots and forests across Europe
Firefighters across Spain, Portugal, Greece, Türkiye and the Balkans were battling wildfires, with another heatwave pushing temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius 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".
"We are being cooked alive, this cannot continue," said Alexandre Favaios, a mayor in Portugal.
On the outskirts of the Spanish capital, Madrid, a fire killed a man working at a horse stable and reached some houses and farms but was contained by Tuesday, regional authorities said.
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.
In Montenegro's mountainous Kuči area, north-east of the capital Podgorica, one army soldier was killed and another badly injured when a water tanker they were operating overturned, the Defence Ministry said.
In Tarifa, on the southernmost tip of the Iberian peninsula, beachgoers and celebrity chef José Andrés filmed flames and black smoke on the hills above whitewashed villas.
More than 2,000 people were evacuated from there as the fire — believed to have started in eucalyptus and pine forests — spread, officials said.
Helicopters doused the blaze with seawater.
Authorities in Albania, Montenegro, Germany, Spain, Italy and France issued various types of heat warnings.
In Spain, temperatures reached 44C in some regions, according to meteorology service AEMET, with minimal rainfall and windy conditions expected to exacerbate the fire risk.
Spain's Interior Ministry has put national services on stand-by, while almost 1,000 members of the armed forces are already supporting firefighting.
The country's rail operator said trains between north-western Galicia and Madrid were halted because of a fire.
In Spain's largest region, Castile and Leon, more than 1,200 firefighters battled 32 wildfires on Tuesday and thousands of residents were told to leave their homes.
Meanwhile, police said it had arrested a firefighter near the walled city of Avila, north-west of Madrid, who had confessed to starting a fire two weeks ago because of the potential income from work extinguishing it.
In north Portugal, more than 1,300 firefighters backed by 16 aircraft were battling three large fires. One of them, in the Vila Real area, has been burning for 10 days.
"It's been 10 days that our population is in panic, without knowing when the fire will knock on their door," local mayor Alexandre Favaios told broadcaster RTP, pleading for more government help.
In Albania, swathes of forest and farmland have been burnt by wildfires in the past week, and 30 separate fires continue to burn, stoked by strong winds.
The Defence Ministry said four army helicopters and 80 soldiers were helping firefighters.
It also reported the death of a man suspected of having started in his backyard a fire that spread across a wider area.
In neighbouring Montenegro, authorities backed by helicopters from Serbia and Croatia contained a wildfire near Podgorica on Tuesday, with the capital covered by smoke.
In Gornja Vrbica, residents helped firefighters stop a fire from reaching a local church and cemetery, the Pobjeda newspaper reported.
More help was expected from Austria, Slovenia and Italy under the EU civil protection mechanism.
"Everything that can be paid for and bought will be compensated, but the memories that burned in these four rooms and the attic cannot be compensated," Dragana Vukovic, whose house in south-eastern Piperi was reduced to ruins, told Reuters.
In Greece, at Europe's southernmost tip, wildfires in some cases fanned by gale-force winds forced the evacuation of several villages and a hotel on the tourist islands of Zakynthos and Cephalonia in the Ionian Sea, along with four other parts of the mainland.
A wildfire in the southern Greek region of Achaia forced residents of five villages near an industrial zone to flee, while 85 firefighters and 10 aircraft tried to stop a fire from reaching houses near the western Greek town of Vonitsa.
The picture was similar in Türkiye, where a large blaze in the north-western province of Çanakkale burned for a second day, prompting the evacuation of hundreds of residents.
Reuters
