Firefighters battle wildfires in Portugal, Spain

Thousands of firefighters in Spain and Portugal were Wednesday battling blazes that threatened locals and tourists, as authorities hoped that the arrival of cooler weather would help tame the flames.

In Portugal, more than 2,000 firefighters backed by water-dropping aircraft were at the scene of about 50 fires on Wednesday morning, down from the 3,800 deployed at 100 fires the previous night, the country’s civil protection agency said.

Carlos Guerra, an official with agency, on Wednesday said most fires were under control even if not fully extingiushed.

The mercury has topped 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) in recent days but the national weather office forecast maximum temperatures would drop by between 4 and 8 degrees Celsius on Wednesday.

Still, over a third of the country faced a “very high” or “maximum” risk of wildfires on Wednesday.

Nearly 300 firefighters were fighting one of the largest fires, near the northern town of Boticas.

Local officials evacuated children and the elderly from a nearby hamlet overnight.

“Two other localities are still threatened by the flames,” said the mayor of Boticas, Fernando Queiroga, complaining that there were not enough firefighters available.

– ‘Murderers’-

Just across the Spanish border, the intense heat also fanned five wildfires in the northwestern Galicia region.

On Spain’s eastern coast firefighters had managed to stabilise a wildfire raging since Sunday near the popular resort of Benidorm that prompted the temporary evacuation of 1,400 people.

“They continue to work to water the area. The fire… has been stabilised,” a local emergency services spokeswoman said.

Authorities suspect the blaze was deliberately set and are looking for the culprits.

Another wildfire on the holiday island of Menorca was declared under control on Tuesday night after destroying scrubland and pine forest near Arenal d’en Castell, local emergency services said.

That fire “was caused by children playing, probably due to a firecracker,” the regional government said.

Temperatures in Spain have also hit records in recent day, topping 40 degrees Celsius in some places.

As such, Spain’s Agriculture Minister Isabel Garcia Tejerina said there was an “added risk” of wildfires due to the intense heat.

“We remain in wildfire season even though we are in the month of September,” she said, adding arsonists were to blame for most major wildfires in Spain this year.

At least 92 fire outbreaks have been recorded since Monday in the Galician province of Orense, leading officials to suspect arson.

The rural affairs minister in the regional government of Galicia, Angeles Vazquez Mejuto, said those who deliberately set wildfires in the middle of a heatwave were “murderers”.

According to the agriculture ministry, wildfires destroyed almost 40,000 hectares (100,000 acres) of land between January and August — an area close to the size of Barbados.

But this is still far less than the average for the period, which since 2006 has been around 78,000 hectares (193,000 acres).

Wildfires have so far this year destroyed over 107,000 hectares (264,000 acres) of land in mainland Portugal.

Another 5,400 hectares (13,300 acres) of land have been destroyed on the holiday island of Madeira where wildfires killed three people in August and charred dozens of homes.