Spain wildfires are ‘clear warning’ of climate emergency, minister says. Environment minister says blazes, in which two people have died, are proof of country’s vulnerability to global heating

A firefighter battles a wildfire in the village of Parafita, Galicia region, Spain, on Tuesday. Photograph: Violeta Santos Moura/Reuters

by  Sam Jones in Madrid, Helena Smith in Athens and agencies

 The heatwave-fuelled wildfires that have killed two people in Spain over recent days, devouring thousands of hectares of land and forcing thousands of people from their homes, are a “clear warning” of the impact of the climate emergency, the country’s environment minister has said.

 

Speaking on Wednesday morning, as firefighters in Spain, Greece and other Mediterranean countries continued to battle dozens of blazes, Sara Aagesen said the 14 wildfires still burning across seven Spanish regions were further proof of the country’s particular vulnerability to global heating.

Aagesen said that while some of the fires appeared to have been started deliberately, the deadly blazes were a clear indicator of the climate emergency and of the need for better preparation and prevention.

“The fires are one of the parts of the impact of that climate change, which is why we have to do all we can when it comes to prevention,” she told Cadena Ser radio.

“Our country is especially vulnerable to climate change. We have resources now but, given that the scientific evidence and the general expectation point to it having an ever greater impact, we need to work to reinforce and professionalise those resources.”

Firefighters on the outskirts of Abejera de Tábara, Zamora, Spain. Photograph: Susana Vera/Reuters

Aagesen’s comments came a day after temperatures in parts of southern Spain surged past 45C (113F). The state meteorological office, Aemet, said there were no recorded precedents for the temperatures experienced between 1 August and 20 August.

A 35-year-old volunteer firefighter died on Tuesday in the north-western Spanish region of Castilla y León, where fires have prompted the evacuation of more than 8,000 residents, and where seven people are being treated in hospital for serious burns. Four are in a critical condition.

The firefighter’s death came hours after that of a 50-year-old man who suffered 98% burns while trying to save horses from a burning stable near Madrid on Monday night.

By Wednesday morning, the Madrid fire had been brought under control, but blazes in the far north-western region Galicia had consumed 11,500 hectares (30,000 acres) of land by the end of the day.

“Emergency teams are continuing to fight fires across our country,” the prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, said in a post on X on Wednesday. “The fire situation remains serious and extreme caution is essential. My thanks, once again, to all of you who are working tirelessly to fight the flames.”

A helicopter flies over the town of Vilar near Chandrexa de Queixa in Galicia, Spain, on Tuesday. Photograph: Brais Lorenzo/EPA

Neighbouring Portugal deployed more than 2,100 firefighters and 20 aircraft against five big blazes, with efforts focused on a fire in the central municipality of Trancoso that has raged since Saturday.

Strong gusts of wind had rekindled flames overnight and threatened nearby villages, where television images showed local people volunteering to help firefighters under a thick cloud of smoke.

In Greece, which requested EU aerial assistance on Tuesday, close to 5,000 firefighters were battling blazes fanned by gale-force winds nationwide. Authorities said emergency workers were waging a “a titanic battle” to douse flames still raging through the western Peloponnese, in Epirus farther north, and on the islands of Zakynthos, Kefalonia and Chios, where thousands of residents and tourists have been evacuated from homes and hotels.

Local media reported the wildfires had decimated houses, farms and factories and forced people to flee. Fifteen firefighters and two volunteers had suffered burns and other injuries including “symptoms of heatstroke”, the fire service said.

A man moves goats during a wildfire in Vounteni, on the outskirts of Patras, Greece, on Wednesday. Photograph: Thanassis Stavrakis/AP

Around midnight a huge blaze erupted on Chios, devouring land that had only begun to recover from devastating wildfires in June. As the flames reached the shores, the coastguard rushed to remove people on boats to safety.

On the other side of Greece, outside the western city of Patras, volunteers with the Hellenic Red Cross struggled to contain infernos barrelling towards villages and towns. By lunchtime on Wednesday, media footage showed flames on the outskirts of Patras, Greece’s third-largest city. Municipal authorities announced a shelter had been set up to provide refuge, food and water for those in need.

Officials evacuated a children’s hospital and a retirement home in the city as a precaution, and local media footage showed the roof of a 17th-century monastery outside the city on fire.

Seventeen settlements around Preveza, where fires broke out Tuesday, were reported to be without electricity or water.

“Today is also expected to be very difficult as in most areas of the country a very high risk of fire is forecast,” a fire service spokesperson, Vassilis Vathrakoyiannis, said in a televised address. “By order of the head of the fire brigade, all services nationwide, including civil protection forces, will be in a state of alert.”

Firefighters take a quick rest in Izmir, Turkey, on Wednesday. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

At first light, 33 water-dumping planes and helicopters scrambled to extinguish fires, he said.

Temperatures exceeding 35C (95F) are predicted, according to some meteorologists, to rise further later this week, the height of the summer for Greeks. Record heat and prolonged drought have already turned much of the country tinder-dry, producing conditions ripe for forest fires.

A forestry worker was killed on Wednesday while responding to a wildfire in southern Turkey, officials said. The forestry ministry said the worker died in an accident involving a fire truck that left four others injured.

Turkey has been battling severe wildfires since late June. A total of 18 people have been killed, including 10 rescue volunteers and forestry workers who died in July.

In southern Albania a wildfire caused explosions after detonating buried second world war-era artillery shells. Officials said on Wednesday an 80-year-old man had died in one blaze south of the capital, Tirana.

The Associated Press and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report

Thousands in Greece and Turkey evacuate as winds and heat fan wildfires. Czech firefighters and Italian aircraft join rescue effort in Greece, and firefighter among those killed in Turkey

 

Near Bursa, Turkey’s fourth-largest city, more than 1,700 people were forced to evacuate their homes as a wildfire approached. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

 

by  Helena Smith in Athens

 

Thousands of people in Greece and Turkey have been forced to evacuate homes as firefighters in the countries battled to contain wildfires fanned by strong winds and searing heat.

As temperatures in south-eastern Europe exceeded 40C for a seventh straight day, the Greek prime minister praised rescue workers for waging “a titanic battle” to bring blazes under control.

“The state mechanism has been called to engage in a titanic battle, simultaneously responding to dozens of wildfires across the country,” Kyriakos Mitsotakis said in a statement. “To those who saw their properties destroyed by the fury of fire, know that the state will stand by your side.”

Eleven regions of Greece face a “very high risk” of fire, and the government has appealed for help from EU partners to help it deal with fires burning on multiple fronts.

Emergency services said that while a conflagration that had injured two firefighters in Kryoneri, north-east of Athens, had been successfully quelled, fires around Messinia in the south-west Peloponnese and on the popular island of Kythera had not been contained.

 

Helicopter crews try to control hotspots in Kryoneri. Photograph: Yannis Kolesidis/EPA

 The authorities were also battling flare-ups on the islands of Evia and Crete. In all of the stricken areas residents received messages to evacuate.

 

Several regions were placed under a red category 5 alert, the highest on the national scale, because of conditions exacerbated by the extreme weather that had turned terrain to tinder.

The National Observatory in Athens recorded a temperature of 45.8C (114.5F) in Messinia on Friday. On Saturday, the temperature reached 45.2C (113.4F) in Amfilochia, western Greece.

By late Sunday, as Czech firefighters and Italian water-bombers joined emergency teams in Greece, the focus turned to Kythera.

Describing the destruction as “incalculable”, the public broadcaster ERT reported: “The first images are resonant of a biblical disaster as huge areas have been reduced to cinders and ash.”

The island’s deputy mayor, Giorgos Komninos, was cited as saying: “Everything, from houses, beehives [to] olive trees has been burnt.”

Two teams of forest commandos, 67 firefighters and scores of volunteers backed by 22 fire brigade trucks, three helicopters and two planes were struggling to douse flames that had ripped through prime agricultural and forest land on the island fuelled by gale-force winds.

As flames approached, villagers were ordered to evacuate to safer areas, with 139 people, including tourists who were trapped on a beach, being rescued by the coast guard.

The aftermath of a fire on Evia island on Sunday. Photograph: Angelos Tzortzinis/AFP/Getty Images

The meteorologist Panagiotis Yiannopoulos told ERT: “We are expecting the winds to get stronger right over Kythera and Crete, winds of six-beaufort strength from this evening until Tuesday evening, so a lot of very strong wind over many hours.”

In Turkey, where a record temperature of 50.5 C was registered in the province of Şirnak, in the south-east – surpassing a previous heat record of 49.5C in August 2023 – more than 1,700 people were forced to flee their homes after wildfires barrelled towards Bursa, the country’s fourth-largest city. Orhan Saribal, an opposition parliamentarian, described the scene as “an apocalypse”.

More than 1,100 firefighters were battling the flames, with authorities saying that at least 76 blazes had broken out within a 24-hour period. Turkey has been hit by numerous heat-induced infernos for weeks.

On Sunday, Bursa’s mayor said a firefighter had died of a heart attack on the job, bringing the death toll to 14. Ten of the victims were rescue volunteers and forestry workers killed on Wednesday in a fire in the west of the country.

Dozens of fires were also reported in Albania over the weekend, where thousands were forced to evacuate homes in the southern town of Delvina.