Affected by a heat wave, like its neighbors in southern Europe, Portugal is also the victim of fires. This Tuesday, more than 600 Portuguese firefighters were trying to come to the end of a forest fire which broke out in the tourist region of the Algarve (south). The start of the flame took place on the night of Sunday to Monday in the town of Castro Marim, in the hinterland near the Spanish border, and had been temporarily circumscribed before reactivating in the afternoon.
He then “progressed in a lightning way towards the municipalities of Tavira and Vila Real de Santo Antonio”, reaching a perimeter of about forty kilometers and an estimated area of 9,000 hectares, said Tuesday the commander of regional civil protection, Richard Marques at a press conference.
The flames fanned by the force of the wind
A firefighter who suffered burns was briefly hospitalized, he said, while a gendarmerie official reported the evacuation of 81 people in a dozen hamlets. According to testimonies gathered by local media, several agricultural and residential buildings were damaged, at least partially, but the authorities have not confirmed this information.
Fanned by the force of the wind, the flames descended from the hills of the hinterland towards the coast, towards the south. The firefighters, supported by some 200 vehicles and eight planes or helicopters, fear in the afternoon weather conditions “still worrying”, said Richard Marques. Faced with scorching temperatures conducive to forest fires that Portugal has been experiencing since Friday, Lisbon extended the fire alert in force in most of the territory until Tuesday evening.
12,000 hectares devastated in its Spanish neighbor
In neighboring Spain, the fire which broke out on Saturday in Navalacruz, near Avila (center-west), remains “active” at “level 2 of dangerousness”, but its development is now described as “favorable” , according to the authorities of the region of Castile and Leon. This forest fire, which mobilized up to a thousand rescuers and numerous air resources, devastated at least 12,000 hectares and led to the evacuation this weekend of nearly a thousand inhabitants.
Like dozens of other medium-sized fires, it is the result of the heat wave that has swept Spain since Wednesday, with abnormally high temperatures that climbed to 47.4 degrees on Saturday in Andalusia (south), an absolute temperature record recorded in the country, according to the national meteorological agency.