Two people burnt to death after their car was engulfed in a huge forest fire in Spain, officials said on Wednesday as firefighters battled blazes in many parts of sweltering southern Europe.
Portugal appealed for more help from its European partners as 1 300 firefighters fought to put out several major fires across the country, while in France authorities said they had succeeded in containing a large blaze.
”You’d think you were on the moon,” French municipal official Vivian May said as he surveyed the smouldering landscape near the 2 000-year-old city of Nimes in southern France.
”There are no flowers, no insects. You can’t hear any sounds of the bush. It’s a catastrophe for the flora and fauna.”
More than 3 000ha of land around Nimes have been consumed since the fires first broke out last weekend in dry wooded areas frequently at risk in the hot summer months.
Authorities suspect several of them were started deliberately or through criminal negligence. At least three firemen have been hurt and about 2 000 people evacuated from their homes at the weekend.
In Spain, officials said two people perished when their car became trapped in a fire on Tuesday near Huelva in southwestern Spain.
Flames were leaping up to 20m into the air in some areas around Huelva, where about 3 000ha of land have been charred by a fire that is also threatening precious local wildlife.
Fires in the northwestern region of Galicia have also burnt more than 1 000ha of land.
On Monday, officials said four people had died as a result of the heatwave gripping parts of Spain, taking the total death toll this summer to 11.
Exceptionally hot weather killed at least 141 people in Spain last year.
In Portugal, 1 300 firefighters using 340 trucks and 39 water-dropping aircraft were struggling to douse eight major brush fires dotted around the north, centre and south of the country and another 20 smaller blazes.
According to estimates, up to 30 000ha of land have been consumed by fire since the start of the year.
One of the biggest infernos was in the Geres mountains in the north of the country, where Portugal’s biggest natural park is located. It is home to a wide variety of rare plants and animals.
Another hard-hit region was the southernmost province of Algarve, one of Europe’s top tourist destinations, where temperatures have reached 45 degrees Celsius in recent days in some parts.
Local residents using hoses and plastic buckets scrambled to protect their homes from flames near the central Algarve town of Loule where a large fire has burning in a mountainous region for more than 30 hours.
The fire had already destroyed more than 3 000ha of farm and scrubland, Loule mayor Seruca Emidio said.
The Portuguese government has already appealed for help from European Union partners and late on Tuesday it said it had asked neighbouring Spain to provide it with extra aircraft to help fight the blazes.
It is the second year in a row that Portugal has experienced devastating forest fires during its hot summer season. — Sapa-AFP