An uncontrollable wildfire in the eastern Spanish province of Valencia has one of the country’s largest fires this year, and 35 planes have been deployed to fight it as the fire entered its fifth day, the government said Friday.
The wildfire has already burned more than 19,000 hectares (47,000 acres) along a perimeter of 137 kilometers (85 miles). Efforts to involve him failed on Thursday and winds made the fire “very aggressive,” Valencia’s regional government said.
In neighboring Portugal, the government on Friday announced a three-day national state of alert on Sunday. Portugal is in the midst of a severe drought and has also experienced devastating wildfires this summer.
The move, which gives the government special and transitory powers, such as a forest ban, is a reaction to forecasts of indoor temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) starting Sunday in what could be the country’s third heat wave this summer.
Portuguese Interior Minister Jose Luís Carneiro said the armed forces would provide more forest patrols in those days. He also announced that the Emergency Preparedness Agency would secure more investments to hire another 500 firefighters.
Meanwhile, in Valencia, Spain, 4 other people were still hospitalized after suffering severe burns on Wednesday when several passengers tried to jump out of an exercise that had stopped and tried to return amid the surrounding flames. The exercise inadvertently headed towards the spreading forest. fire.
The head of the Provincial Council, Ximo Puig, asked for a report from the chimney to explain why the exercise was allowed to pass through a burning area.
Spain has been hit harder than any other European country by forest fires this year, according to the European Commission’s Copernicus Earth programme. This year, forest fires in Spain burned 4 times more land than in the last decade.
As of early August, there have been 43 giant wildfires, affecting at least 500 hectares (1,235 acres), in the Mediterranean country, above the average of recent years.
The European Forest Fire Information System estimates that Spain has burned 284,764 hectares (704,000 acres) this year, 4 times more than the average since records began in 2006.
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