Thousands of firefighters, backed by soldiers and water-bombing aircraft, battled more than 20 major wildfires across western Spain on Monday, where officials say a record area of land has already been destroyed.
Spain and neighbouring Portugal have been among the hardest hit in southern Europe by wildfires fuelled by extreme heatwaves and drought conditions linked to climate change.
Authorities confirmed two more firefighter deaths on Sunday — one in each country, both in road accidents — bringing the toll to four in Spain and two in Portugal since the blazes began last week.
Spain’s civil protection chief, Virginia Barcones, told state broadcaster TVE that 23 fires had reached “operational level two,” meaning they posed an immediate threat to nearby communities. Most of the active fires are concentrated in the regions of Castile and Leon, Galicia and Extremadura, where thousands have been forced to flee their homes.
Residents voiced anger over what they described as inadequate preparation and limited resources. “Not a single helicopter, not one plane, has come to drop water and cool things down a bit,” said Patricia Vila, 42, in the village of Vilamartin de Valdeorras in Galicia.
The scale of destruction is unprecedented. According to the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS), more than 343,000 hectares — nearly 850,000 acres — have burned in Spain so far this year, surpassing the previous record of 306,000 hectares set in 2022.
Spain has received aerial firefighting support from France, Italy, Slovakia and the Netherlands, while Portugal has been assisted by Sweden and Morocco. But Defence Minister Margarita Robles warned that thick smoke, visible from space, was hampering “airborne action.”
Across the border in Portugal, around 2,000 firefighters were deployed Monday, half of them concentrated in Arganil in the north. The country has lost 216,000 hectares of land to fire this year. Prime Minister Luis Montenegro said Portugal had endured 24 days of “unprecedented severity” marked by soaring temperatures and strong winds. “We are at war, and we must triumph in this fight,” he declared.
Officials in both countries expressed cautious hope that cooler conditions could soon help contain the fires. Spain’s meteorological agency said the heatwave, with temperatures reaching 45°C in some regions, was beginning to ease.
Among the victims in Spain was a firefighter whose water truck overturned in Castile and Leon, as well as a Romanian worker who died trying to protect horses north of Madrid. In Portugal, President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa confirmed that a firefighter died in a traffic accident, while two colleagues were seriously injured. A former mayor in Guarda was also killed last week while trying to fight flames.
