Spain wildfires hit record even as heat wave ends : NPR
A resident passes in front of the Flames on Monday while he tries to turn off the fire near the village of Redordondo, near Oreese, in northwest of Spain.
Pablo Garcia / AP
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Pablo Garcia / AP
Madrid – Spain approached several major forest fires Tuesday in one of the most destructive fire seasons in the country in recent decades, despite the temperatures that have dropped through the Iberian Peninsula.
Thousands of firefighters helped by soldiers and bombing planes continued to fight fires that were tearing apart in descending woods which were particularly serious in northwestern Spain, where the AEMET weather agency has reported a still “very high or extreme fire – in particular in the Galicia region.
Galicia fires have ravaged small sparsely populated small towns, forcing the inhabitants in many cases to intervene before the arrival of the firefighters.
The German fire -fighting units arrived in northern Spain on Tuesday to help fight the flames, the Interior Ministry of Spain announced. More than 20 vehicles have been deployed to help fight a fire in progress in Jarilla in the region of the end that borders Portugal, the ministry said.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez visited the region on Tuesday, where he spoke of the recent record heat that fueled fires.
“Science tells us that common sense also tells us, in particular that of farmers and breeders, those who live in rural areas, that the climate changes, that climate emergency becomes more and more recurrent, more frequent and has an ever greater impact,” said Sánchez.
Residents look at Monday as a fire is advancing towards Redordondo Village, near Orosense, in northwestern Spain.
Pablo Garcia / AP
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Pablo Garcia / AP
In Galicia, land management has also played a role; Large expanses of unabled vegetation and villages depopulated in wooded lands have led to the accumulation of forest fuel, said Adrian Régos, an ecologist at the biological mission of Galice, a research institute.
Fires in Spain killed four people this year and burned more than 382,000 hectares, or around 1,475 square miles, according to the European Forest Forest Information System. This surface is more than twice the size of Metropolitan London.
Many fires have been triggered by human activity. Police have held 23 people for alleged criminal fire and investigating 89 others, the Spanish civil guard said on Tuesday.
In Portugal, more than 3,700 firefighters attacked shadows, including four large in the north and the center.
Forest fires burned around 235,000 hectares or 907 square miles, according to Effis – almost 5 times more than the 2006-2024 average for this period. Two people died.
Europe heats up twice as fast as the global average since the 1980s, according to the Copernicus Climate Change EU service. Scientists say that climate change exacerbates the frequency and intensity of heat and drought in certain parts of Europe, which makes the region more vulnerable to forest fires.
