About 1,500 firefighters are battling several forest fires in central and northern Portugal in the wake of a heat wave, prompting the government to declare a “state of emergency”.
And fires have been burning in several areas since Thursday and have destroyed at least two homes, while Friday and Saturday, about 250 fires were reported.
The fires come after a heat wave in the country this week, in which the temperature exceeded 40 degrees Celsius, with higher temperatures expected in the coming days.
Scientists say climate change is leading to more extreme weather and disasters, particularly heat waves and wildfires.
The Portuguese government declared a nationwide “state of emergency” as the latest fires raged on Sunday, putting relief workers on alert.
The declared state of emergency is not the highest and is lower than the state of disaster or the state of extreme emergency.
The Civil Protection Agency said that there are about 1,500 firefighters battling the fires in the municipalities of Orem, Pombal, Carazida and Ansiach.
In the village of Travisa de Almogadel in central Portugal, retiree Donzelia Marquez said she was relieved to see that the fires did not come to her home, which she returned to Sunday, the day after her evacuation.
Markesh, 76, said that the fire “reached 50 meters from the last house in the village… There everything was burnt,” referring to the hills between the house and the town of Frihinda.
More than 700 soldiers were deployed to the area on Sunday after the fires destroyed 1,500 hectares of agricultural land, according to estimates by the Civil Protection Agency.
12 firefighters and about 20 civilians were injured in the fires, but the majority of the injured were treated in the field because they suffered from breathing difficulties or exhaustion. Prime Minister Antonio Costa cancelled a visit to Mozambique to follow the developments of the fires in his country.
The government asked the European Union to activate its common mechanism for civil protection, which allows Portugal to benefit from two firefighting planes stationed in Spain.
“We are facing an almost unprecedented situation in terms of weather conditions,” said Andre Fernandez, head of Portugal’s Civil Protection Agency.
This year, Portugal has experienced severe weather conditions, with a severe drought affecting about 28 percent of the country in June, compared to only one percent in May.
