Extreme heat and wildfires: What the blazes and devastation in Spain and Portugal tell us.
Another summer of fire. And flames. Spain and Portugal are battling a devastating emergency caused by record-breaking forest fires, with over 250,000 hectares ablaze. The fuse was sparked by an unprecedented heatwave, with temperatures reaching and sometimes exceeding 44 degrees Celsius in some areas. The extreme heat naturally created ideal conditions for the flames to ignite and spread, sparking blazes that have forced the evacuation of thousands of people and the massive deployment of emergency personnel.
In Spain, fires have already destroyed over 115,000 hectares of land , mostly in Galicia, with the province of Ourense among the hardest hit. 575 residents of several towns in the province of Salamanca have been evacuated. In Castile and León, over 3,000 people have been displaced, while concerns remain high about environmental damage, after another large fire struck the Las Médulas Natural Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site, in recent days. More than 13,600 State Security Forces are involved in rescue efforts, supported by 500 military personnel, in what is likely the largest European civil protection deployment in the country's history.
Things are no better in Portugal , which has deployed some 3,200 firefighters to combat the fire emergency, primarily in the regions of Arganil and Sátão . Approximately 139,000 hectares have already burned in the country, an area 17 times greater than the same period last year, resulting in at least one death and several injuries. The Portuguese government has requested assistance from the EU Civil Protection Mechanism and is awaiting the arrival of two Fire Boss planes to reinforce the rescue effort.
The Camino de Santiago is at riskThe fires are also threatening one of the most popular and fascinating tourist routes: the Camino de Santiago. On the evening of August 17, the Civil Protection Department of Castile and León, in northwestern Spain, asked people walking a stretch of the Camino de Santiago that passes through the region to interrupt their journey due to the massive fires that have been raging in the region for several days.
Thousands of pilgrims and tourists were stranded at the stations of Zamora and Ourense, following the five-day interruption of the high-speed rail line between Madrid and Galicia. In Spain, more than 343,862 hectares of vegetation have gone up in smoke since the beginning of the year, a historic record for the country, surpassing the 2022 figure (306,555 hectares) despite the number of fires being less than half.
Estimates from the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS) place Spain as the EU country most affected by the fires, ahead of Portugal. Since they broke out in early August, there have been four deaths, most of them rescue workers, hundreds of municipalities evacuated, and 31,000 people preemptively displaced. The flames have reached the heart of the Picos de Europa, straddling Castile-Leon and Asturias, forcing the closure of the Vía del Cares, one of Europe's most popular hiking trails. Spain and Portugal are the most affected countries, but the fire emergency has never been so acute across Europe. According to estimates from the Copernicus space program , by 2025, fires will have burned approximately 8,948 square kilometers of forest across the European Union: the largest area since 2006.
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