Alex Trelinski
SPAIN continued to battle against several major wildfires on Tuesday despite temperatures falling after a heatwave that lasted over a fortnight.
Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, on a visit to one of the affected areas- Jarilla in Extremadura- said that next week’s Council of Ministers will declare fire-raised regions as ‘disaster areas’.
He later went on to Zamora province where he was greeted by some booing.
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As of 6pm on Tuesday, 21 level two outbreaks are still active in the country.
Over 33, 000 people have been evacuated since the wildfires started on August 12.
Thousands of firefighters aided by soldiers and water-bombing aircraft have continued to fight blazes, especially in north-western Spain.
Fires in Extremadura, Galicia, and Castilla y Leon, forced authorities to suspend rail services and cut access to roads- in addition to blocking a 50 km section of the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage trail.
Figures released on Tuesday by European Forest Fire Information System showed that 38,000 hectares of vegetation had been burned since Monday.
Wildfires across of the whole of last year in Spain ravaged just under 42,000 hectares.
The good news is that temperatures are falling and humidity is rising.
“The evolution is favourable, the teams are stabilising the fires,” said Castilla y Leon president, Alfonso Fernandez Manueco.
“If the weather trends continue, we will be better tomorrow than today and better the day after tomorrow,” he added.
So far this year, an estimated 382,600 hectares have been burned in Spain – an area equivalent to the size of Mallorca.
It is the largest area in records that go back to 2006 and more than four times the 2006-2024 average.
During his Jarilla visit, Pedro Sanchez said the government would declare many of the affected areas as emergency zones, which means they can get aid for reconstruction projects.
He also blamed the fires on climate change.
“Science tells us, common sense tells us too, especially that of farmers and ranchers, of those who live in rural areas, that the climate is changing, that the climate emergency is becoming more and more recurrent, more frequent and has an ever greater impact,” the Prime Minister said.
The fires in Spain have killed four people this year- many of which were caused by human elements..
The Guardia Civil has detained 23 people for suspected arson since June and are investigating 89 others.
Spain’s army has deployed 3,400 troops and 50 aircraft to help firefighters, while the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Netherlands and Slovakia have sent hundreds of firefighters, vehicles and aircraft.
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