Spain battles 20 major wildfires amid scorching heat, deploys more troops
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A forest guard fighting a forest fire in Carballeda de Avia, Ourense, Galicia, north-western Spain, on Aug 17.
PHOTO: EPA
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VILLARDEVOS, Spain – Scorching heat hampered efforts to contain 20 major wildfires across Spain on Aug 17, prompting the government to deploy an additional 500 troops from the military emergency unit to support firefighting operations.
In the north-western region of Galicia, several fires have converged to form a large blaze, forcing the closure of highways and rail services to the region.
Southern Europe is experiencing one of its worst wildfire seasons in two decades, with Spain among the hardest-hit countries.
In the past week alone, fires there have claimed three lives
Temperatures were expected to reach up to 45 deg C in some areas on Aug 17, Spanish national weather agency Aemet said.
“There are still some challenging days ahead and, unfortunately, the weather is not on our side,” Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez told a news conference in Ourense, one of the most affected areas.
He announced an increase in military reinforcements, bringing the total number of troops deployed across Spain to 1,900.
Ms Virginia Barcones, director-general of emergency services, told Spanish public TV that temperatures were expected to drop from Aug 19, but for now the weather conditions were “very adverse”.
“Today there are extremely high temperatures with an extreme risk of fires, which complicates the firefighting efforts,” she said.
Villagers resort to buckets
In the village of Villardevos in Galicia, desperate neighbours have organised to fight the flames on their own with water buckets as the area was left without electricity to power water pumps.
“The fire planes come in from all sides, but they don’t come here,” Mr Basilio Rodriguez, a resident, told Reuters on Aug 16.
Fellow local resident Lorea Pascual added: “It’s insurmountable, it couldn’t be worse.”
People using branches to fight a wildfire threatening the cemetery in Veiga das Meas, a village in Spain’s Villardevos municipality, on Aug 16.
PHOTO: AFP
Interior Ministry data shows 27 people have been arrested and 92 were under investigation for suspected arson since June.
In neighbouring Portugal, wildfires have burned some 155,000ha of vegetation so far in 2025, according to provisional data from the ICNF forestry protection institute – three times the average for this period between 2006 and 2024. About half of that area burned just in the past three days.
Thousands of firefighters were battling eight large blazes in central and northern Portugal, the largest of them near Piodao, a scenic, mountainous area popular with tourists.
Another blaze in Trancoso, farther north, has now been raging for eight days. A smaller fire a few kilometres east claimed a local resident’s life on Aug 15 – Portugal’s first death from fires this season. REUTERS
