Wildfire in Spain forces hundreds to evacuate

Wildfire in Spain forces hundreds to evacuate
by AFP Staff Writers
Madrid (AFP) May 19, 2023

Firefighters backed by soldiers battled a wildfire in western Spain on Friday that has forced hundreds of people to evacuate from nearby villages, officials said.

Local authorities blame arson for the blaze, which broke out Wednesday near the village of Pinofranqueado in the sparsely populated region of Extremadura bordering Portugal.

The flames have ravaged some 3,000 hectares (7,400 acres) of forest and scrubland and forced the evacuation of 700 people from several villages, the regional government said.

Strong winds were "making it extremely difficult to control" the blaze, the president of the regional government, Guillermo Fernandez Vara, told reporters.

He also lashed out against the "bastards" who set fires that cause "irreversible damages that take decades to recover, if they ever recover."

Wind gusts of up to 60 kilometres (35 miles) an hour have been recorded in the region in recent days.

Weather conditions are forecast to remain challenging, with winds only expected to calm on Sunday when there is the possibility of light rain in the region.

Over 400 professionals backed by 14 water-bombing aircraft were working to put out the flames, the regional agriculture ministry said.

The firefighting team included 165 soldiers from Spain's military emergencies unit UME.

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez cancelled his participation on Friday at a rally in Extremadura ahead of regional elections on May 28 because of the blaze.

In a tweet late on Thursday he said he was following the "evolution of the wildfire very closely".

Spain, which is experiencing long-term drought after three years of below-average rainfall, has already experienced multiple wildfires this year.

The drought was made worse by an unusually early heatwave at the end of April that brought exceptionally high temperatures normally only seen in summer across much of the country.

The mercury hit 38.8 degrees Celsius (101.8 degrees Fahrenheit) in the southern city of Granada on April 27, the hottest temperature ever recorded in mainland Spain during that month.

In 2022, a particularly bad year for wildfires in Europe, Spain was the continent's worst-hit country.

Nearly 500 blazes destroyed more than 300,000 hectares, according to the European Forest Fire Information System.

Scientists say human-induced climate change is making extreme weather events including heatwaves and droughts more frequent and more intense. They increase the risk of fires, which emit climate heating greenhouse gases.