Spain, Europe and wildfires
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Spain's worst wave of wildfires in at least two decades spread to the southern slopes of the Picos de Europa mountain range on Monday and prompted authorities to close part of the popular Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route.
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Wildfires in Spain and Portugal force evacuations and deployment of thousands of emergency personnel
A heatwave is continuing to affect the Iberian Peninsula. Thousands of firefighters have been deployed to battle ongoing blazes and towns have been evacuated. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez visited affected regions to meet with the heads of emergency teams.
France sent two teams of 100 firefighters, who were “currently arriving,” Virginia Barcones Sanz, the director general of civil protection and emergencies in Spain, told reporters on Monday. Germany is deploying a team of 66 firefighters with 21 vehicles, while Finland is sending 30 firefighters, she said.
Europe has been warming twice as fast as the global average since the 1980s, making the region more vulnerable to wildfires.
By Guillermo Martinez and Ana Cantero VILLARDEVÓS (Reuters) -Scorching heat hampered efforts to contain 20 major wildfires across Spain on Sunday, prompting the government to deploy an additional 500 troops from the military emergency unit to support firefighting operations.
Al Jazeera on MSN3h
‘Flames that consumed the hills’: Portugal, Spain reel from wildfires
Emergency services are under strain due to the ‘worst’ fires in Portugal in years, Al Jazeera’s Sonia Gallego says.
Another 500 soldiers have been deployed across Spain to battle the deadly wildfires scorching the country. More than 1,000 troops have now been sent in to tackle several raging infernos, which have burned an area roughly the size of metropolitan London in the past week, killing seven people.
The fires in Spain this year have burned 158,000 hectares or 610 square miles, according to the European Union’s European Forest Fire Information System. That is an area roughly as big as metropolitan London.
DPA International on MSN5h
Fourth death as Spain battles massive wildfires across north and west
A fourth person has died in the severe wildfires sweeping the north and west of Spain, authorities said on Monday. A firefighter was killed when the truck he was travelling in overturned in León province overnight.
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