At least two people have died in wildfires that raged across central and northern Portugal on Monday, forcing authorities to evacuate villages, close highways and call on the European Union to send in more water-bombing planes.
The situation was most dangerous in the northwestern district of Aveiro, where a forest fire reached the outskirts of the town of Albergaria-a-Velha and burned several houses, according to the mayor.
More than 1,100 firefighters were battling that blaze and three others in the surrounding area. Police closed a section of the main highway between Lisbon and Porto as thick smoke covered the area.
Police said they had found the remains of a man who apparently worked for a nearby forestry company. In the same area, another person died of a heart attack as the fire approached, and two people were hospitalized with serious injuries, according to the civil protection service.
A helicopter of the Portuguese firefighters unloads water in Macinhata do Vouga, this Monday
Authorities said they had deployed 12 firefighting aircraft to the district and were battling at least 20 fires across the country.
Wind gusts of up to 70 km/h
The Government has requested eight more aircraft from the European Commission under the EU civil protection mechanism known as RescEU.
Two arrived from Spain and two more were expected from France, an Interior Ministry spokesman told Reuters. Greece announced it would send two Canadair CL-415 aircraft.
National emergency and civil protection commander André Fernandes said the situation was likely to worsen amid unusually dry conditions and wind gusts of up to 70 km/h.
Fernandes had planned to maintain the special red alert status throughout mainland Portugal.
The mayor of Albergaria-a-Velha, Antonio Loureiro, told reporters that the fire had burned four houses and threatened 20 others in the industrial and residential perimeter of this town of about 25,000 inhabitants.
In Albergaria-a-velha, residents flee while others try to control the fire alongside firefighters
Temperatures topped 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit) across the country over the weekend and Monday and were expected to remain high through Tuesday.
Portugal and neighbouring Spain have seen fewer fires than usual after a rainy start to the year. But both remain vulnerable to increasingly hot and dry conditions that scientists blame on global warming. (Reporting by Sergio Goncalves and Andrei Khalip; Editing by Daniela Desantis and Raúl Cortés Fernández)
Source: www.lavanguardia.com
