1 of 2 | Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez chaired a meeting Monday morning of Spain’s State Coordination and Management Committee for Forest Fires to analyze the situation. A reported 12 fires still burn in the northwest region of Galicia (pictured Monday) and uncontrolled in Ourense. Photo By Sxenick/EPA
A fourth person died as wildfires blaze on in Spain and parts of Europe worsened by sweltering heat fueled by effects of climate change.
Spain’s weather agency, Aemet, warned the public on Monday to be “cautious” of the “very high or extreme fire danger” in most of Spain as it reported high 108 degree Fahrenheit temperates on Sunday in Cadiz in the southern tip of Spain only miles to the Strait of Gibraltar.
“Although the heat wave is starting to subside,” Aemet officials said.
“Very high temperatures will still be reached today in the east and south of the (Iberian) peninsula.”
Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez chaired a meeting on Monday morning of Spain’s State Coordination and Management Committee for Forest Fires to analyze the situation.
A reported 12 fires still burn in the northwest region of Galicia and uncontrolled in Ourense.
“The government continues to work with all available resources to fight the fire,” the Sanchez administration stated.
More than 27,000 Spanish civilians were evacuated in the northwest and west where multiple larger fires still burn with Leon and Castile the most impacted areas, with nearly 27,200 acres torched so far in the western province of Caceres.
On Monday, the local station reported “unbreathable” air due to smoke.
Four were in critical conduction on Sunday after five suffered injuries from fires in Castile and Leon.
On Sunday, the Spanish government sent more than 500 additional troops to aid in the effort bringing it to around 1,900 Spanish troops serving to combat flames.
Sanchez expressed his “sadness” and noted the “desolation” over the ongoing situation.
Wildfires have also been reported as ongoing in Portugal, France, Greece and the Balkans as a scorching heat wave swept across parts of southern Europe.
Meanwhile, Portugal’s death count hit two after a fire fighter died in the heat following an accident.
Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa called it “tragic” on Sunday.
Spain so far has reported about three times the number of wildfires that it normally experiences during a typical summer.
The European Commission intervened last week by deploying scores of water-bombing planes and other firefighting aircraft to affected regions in Spain and the Balkans.
“European solidarity knows no borders,” EC President Ursula von Der Leyen said Friday on X in saying the European allies were “mobilizing support.”
So far this year the European Union reported 2,429 square miles of burnt land and Spain’s wildfires account for more than 600 square miles in that total.
According to Spain’s Interior Ministry on Sunday, aid had been mobilized from neighboring France, Italy, the Netherlands, Slovakia, Germany and Czech Republic.
The EC’s aid deployment arrived on top of seven reported dead across Europe at the time while at least 14 wildfires then raged on the continent amid a heat wave.
On Sunday, Spain’s Royal Palace posted a social media video of King Felipe VI taking part in a briefing at UME Headquarters at the Torrejon Air Base thanking military personnel, civilians and volunteers in the wildfire fight.
“Our recognition and utmost gratitude for the work you are doing to protect the civilian population and try to extinguish them as quickly as possible,” the palace posted on X.
