Firefighters battle ‘fire whirls’ in northern Spain

CUBO DE BENAVENTE, Spain – Extreme heat and strong winds caused “fire whirls” as a blaze burned several houses and forced the evacuation of hundreds from near a Unesco-listed national park in northern Spain, the authorities said on Aug 11.

A total of 13 fires broke out in the north of the Castile and Leon region, with about 700 people told to abandon their homes in half a dozen villages.

Four fires were still live, Mr Juan Carlos Suarez-Quinones, chief of environment for the regional government, said on the morning of Aug 11. Firefighters had extinguished the other nine.

High temperatures on Aug 10 had caused the so-called fire whirls near Las Medallas park, forcing firefighters to retreat and burning some houses in the nearby village, Mr Suarez-Quinones said.

“This occurs when temperatures reach around 40 deg C in a very confined valley and then suddenly (the fire) enters a more open and oxygenated area. This produces a fireball, a fire whirl,” he said.

“This explosive and surprising phenomenon was very dangerous. It disrupted all the work that had been done, forcing us to start practically from scratch.”

Scientists say the Mediterranean region’s hotter, drier summers put it at high risk of wildfires.

Once fires start, dry vegetation and strong winds can cause them to spread rapidly and burn out of control, sometimes provoking fire whirls.

A prolonged heatwave in Spain continued on Aug 11 with temperatures set to reach 42 deg C in some regions.

Mr Domingo Aparicio, 77, was evacuated to a nearby town from his home in Cubo de Benavente on Aug 10 after a warehouse in front of his home burned down.

“How am I supposed to feel? It’s always shocking for people close to the catastrophe,” he said.

Two or three fires may have been started by lightning strikes, Mr Suarez-Quinones said, but there were indications that the majority were the result of arson, which he described as “environmental terrorism”.

In the northern part of neighbouring Portugal, nearly 700 firefighters were battling a blaze that started on Aug 9 in Trancoso, about 350km north-east of Lisbon.

So far in 2025, about 52,000ha, or 0.6 per cent of Portugal's total area, have burned, exceeding the 2006 to 2024 average for the same period by about 10,000ha, according to the European Forest Fire Information System.

Firefighters were also battling blazes in Navarra in north-eastern Spain and in Huelva in the south-west, the authorities said. REUTERS