Spain has deployed nearly 2,000 troops to help firefighters tackle wildfires that have devastated swathes of the country, as temperatures hit highs of 45C.
A severe 16-day long heatwave has fuelled around 20 wildfires, burning more than 115,000 hectares in the regions of Galicia and Castile and Leon over the past week. Meanwhile flames have spread to the southern slopes of the Picos de Europa mountain range and Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route.
Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez cut his holiday from the Canary Islands short to visit areas devastated by the wildfires, proposing a “grand state pact” to prepare the country for climate-related events such as wildfires and hurricanes, according to The Times.
He said: “We need to do a thorough analysis of how we can resize our prevention and response capabilities to the climate emergency. We must leave this issue outside of partisan strife. We are all part of the same state, and we must all work in the same direction.”
Defence Minister Margarita Robles told radio station Cadena SER that the country hadn’t experienced such a fire situation in 20 years: “The fires have special characteristics as a result of climate change and this huge heatwave.”
She said thick smoke was affecting the work of water-carrying helicopters and aircraft.
The Interior ministry says 27 people have been arrested and 92 are under investigation for suspected arson since June.
Wildfires in southern Europe have grown so devastating that 155,000 hectares of land have been burnt in Portugal, according to the ICNF forestry protection institute. This is three times the average for this period between 2006 to 2024. About half of that area burned in the past three days.
While Portugal is set for cooler weather in the coming days after several woodland fires, the country’s resources have been stretched after over 4,000 firefighters and more than 1,300 vehicles were deployed on Sunday, as well as 17 aircraft, according to the Civil Protection Agency.
Europe has been warming twice as fast as the global average since the 1980s, according to the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service. Scientists say that climate change is exacerbating the frequency and intensity of heat and dryness in parts of Europe, making the region more vulnerable to wildfires.
Greece, Bulgaria, Montenegro and Albania have also requested help from the EU’s firefighting force in recent days to deal with forest fires.
The force has already been activated as many times this year as in all of last year’s summer fire season.
Recent wildfires in Turkey have killed 19 people and on Sunday, memorials to World War I’s Gallipoli campaign were evacuated, as were six villages in the Canakkale province for precautionary measures..
Some 1,300 firefighting personnel backed by 30 aircraft were battling the blaze, according to the General Directorate of Forestry. A wildfire on the peninsula to the north of the Dardanelles Strait led to the closure of visitor facilities at Gallipoli, the site’s management said.
