A forest fire in central Portugal has destroyed an area of about 7,000 hectares and was still mobilizing more than a thousand firefighters on Sunday, Civil Protection said, as the Iberian country experiences extreme heat.
The emergency services commander in charge of operations, Jose Guilherme, announced, “The estimate of the burned area is 7,000 hectares, but the probability of this fire is estimated at more than 20,000 hectares.”
“More than a thousand operational personnel who will remain on the ground are trying at this stage to ensure the stability of the fire, whose circumference has already reached 60 kilometers,” he said during a press conference in Proenza Ah. Nova.
“It is a very large area with many isolated houses and villages,” he added, explaining that firefighters are focusing their efforts on four hot spots where fires are likely to break out again.
France Press agency
The forest fire, which broke out on Friday in the town of Castelo Branco, destroyed about 6,000 hectares within the first 24 hours, according to Civil Protection in a preliminary estimate of the burned area.
On Saturday, the smoke and ash emanating from it reached the holy city of Fatima (centre), even though Pope Francis gathered more than 200,000 pilgrims there.
Another outbreak led to the mobilization of more than 300 firefighters on Sunday in Odemira near the country’s southwest coast.
France Press agency
However, civil protection official Thiago Poggio indicated on Sunday morning that “the fire is succumbing to the means of combat,” explaining that two fronts of fire are still active, but the third, which was heading towards the south and tourist area of the Algarve, has been controlled.
Due to temperatures that could reach 40 degrees Celsius in some areas on Sunday, Civil Protection warned on Saturday that the fire risk would be “very high or maximum throughout the region” during “the coming days.”
France Press agency
In neighboring Spain, a forest fire that burned nearly 600 hectares in Catalonia (northwest) on the border with France remained under control on Sunday, despite the outbreak of a few cases thanks to violent winds, while Andalusian firefighters were able to control the fire. In Bonares, in Andalusia (south).
