2023-08-08 17:00:29
Firefighters respond to a forest fire, in Carrascal, Portugal, on August 6, 2023. PATRICIA DE MELO MOREIRA / AFP
Thousands of firefighters remained mobilized on Tuesday evening, August 8, to fight a forest fire for four days in the south-west of Portugal, plagued like its Spanish neighbor by an episode of intense heat wave putting most of the peninsula Iberian on alert.
More than a thousand firefighters supported by ten aircraft are mobilized in Odemira, near the southern Portuguese tourist region of the Algarve, where “nearly 10,000 hectares of forest” have burned since Saturday, according to the latest report from the commander of civil protection, Vitor Vaz Pinto. This forest fire continued to progress “on two fronts”he said Tuesday evening, adding that the firefighters had to face in the afternoon to “several occasions of fire” in this region.
According to information reported by the local media, but not yet confirmed by the authorities, a house and its outbuildings, as well as a rural tourism accommodation were affected by the flames. In total, nearly 1,500 inhabitants of twenty villages and vacationers staying in rural tourism establishments and in a campsite have had to be evacuated since the start of this fire, as well as more than a hundred animals. Many of them have been received in a school that has been transformed into a reception centre.
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Record the 46.4 °C
Another large fire, in the Leiria region in central Portugal, calmed down overnight from Monday to Tuesday, after ravaging around 7,000 hectares. Nearly 3,200 firefighters and fifteen aircraft were mobilized Tuesday morning throughout Portugal. Temperatures reached 40 ° C in places on Tuesday, after setting a record for 2023 (46.4 ° C) on Monday in Santarem, in the center, according to a first estimate from the Portuguese meteorological agency.
The state of alert is maintained on both sides of the border, the south-west of Spain being on orange vigilance on Tuesday, with the province of Cordoba, in Andalusia, on red alert, synonymous with extreme danger, announced the Spanish Meteorological Agency (Aemet). Temperatures in Spain are expected to reach 44 ° C on Tuesday and especially Wednesday, the day when this heat wave, the third of the summer, will be at its maximum, underlined the Aemet.
The heat wave is expected to last until Thursday, with a dozen Spanish provinces on red alert on Wednesday, in Andalusia, in the Madrid region, in Castile-La Mancha but also in the Basque Country and its surroundings. Last weekend, more than 1,000 hectares burned in Spain. A fourth major fire broke out on Monday afternoon in Extremadura, a neighboring region of Portugal, in the municipality of Valencia de Alcantara, without the firefighters managing to control it overnight.
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The Iberian Peninsula is on the front line in the face of global warming in Europe, with an increase in episodes of heat waves, drought and fires. Nearly 100,000 hectares have already gone up in smoke in 2023 in Spain and Portugal, according to provisional reports, against more than 400,000 in total in 2022.
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