Spain, after overcoming three fires that broke out last weekend, became on alert on Monday in the face of an increasing fire risk due to a new period of heat wave, the third of the summer.
The situation is equally worrying in Portugal, where hundreds of firefighters are still on hand to fight forest fires, especially in the center and south, while the entire region is on alert due to rising temperatures.
In Spain, several provinces of Andalusia, Castile-La Mancha and Extremadura were placed on orange alert, with temperatures reaching 43 degrees Celsius on Monday, according to the National Meteorological Agency (AEMET).
This third heat wave of the summer, which affects the entire Iberian Peninsula and is expected to continue until Thursday, is expected to reach the peak of this heat wave on Wednesday.
AEMET has therefore issued a red alert, synonymous with extreme danger, for Wednesday in the Madrid region, where temperatures could reach 42 to 43 degrees Celsius, and in the Andalusian province of Jaén, where AEMET expects temperatures to reach 44 degrees Celsius.
“In most parts of the peninsula, there is an orange alert indicating a high risk,” AEMET noted
An intense weekend for firefighters
This new heat wave comes on the heels of an intense weekend for Spanish firefighters, who battled fires on three fronts.
In Catalonia, on the Mediterranean coast on the border with France, Catalan firefighters announced on Monday morning that they had “under control” of a fire that broke out on Friday and burned nearly 600 hectares.
Two other fires, now under control, broke out in Andalusia: one burned about 450 hectares in Huelva province on Saturday and Sunday, and the other broke out less than ten kilometers from the city of Cádiz on Sunday afternoon. They set fire to a pine forest adjacent to Puerto Real, temporarily closing the highway to Cádiz.
Catalonia and Andalusia are the two regions most affected by drought in Spain.
More than 70,000 hectares have burned in Spain since the beginning of the year, a toll that is still far from the 2022 record, with more than 300,000 hectares destroyed, according to the European Forest Fire Information System.
The outer corner of the front, a millimeter of portuguese bombers has been deployed early in the middle of the day to fight the feux in our and Odemira’s environments, where many other countries are located, using the national Automotive System. Civil Protection.
In Odemira, near the country’s southwestern coast, a forest fire that forced several temporary evacuations on Sunday continued to advance, fanned by winds, according to Civil Protection Commander Jose Ribeiro.
This fire, which broke out on Saturday, resulted in nine people being slightly injured among the deployed firefighters.
With temperatures expected to exceed 40 degrees Celsius in many central and southern regions, Portugal is also on alert due to a “very high or maximum” fire risk across the region.
Experts believe that the doubling of the duration of these heat waves, as well as the increase in their duration and intensity, are consequences of climate change.
