Spain declares wildfire disaster zones as heatwave looms

Spain has declared wildfire-hit areas disaster zones as firefighters battle blazes that have forced tens of thousands of people from their homes and left authorities warning that a new heatwave could push fire danger to extreme levels.

For the past week, crews have been fighting a series of fires across the Spanish countryside, including three in the Madrid region that have caused particular concern. More than 70,000 people have been evacuated, according to the BBC, while Al Jazeera reported that 116,000 people have had to leave their homes since the wildfires began, with some later allowed to return.

“It’s a hell of a situation,” Madrid regional leader Isabel Díaz Ayuso said Monday as she visited affected areas with Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez. Ayuso has described the wildfires as “the biggest natural catastrophe in the history of Spain” and said flames had turned parts of the region into a “war zone.”

Sánchez said Tuesday that Spain faced difficult hours and days ahead, though there were signs of progress. Authorities were beginning “to see the light at the end of the tunnel in the fight against wildfires,” he said, while cautioning that the next heatwave still had to be faced.

Temperatures are expected to approach 40C in some regions in the coming days, with the heatwave forecast to last at least until Sunday. Spain’s state meteorological agency, Aemet, warned that the “fire danger level will continue to rise to extreme levels, hindering firefighting efforts.” The Madrid region is under a red weather warning, with temperatures expected to reach 35C in mountain areas and 38C elsewhere in the community.

Ayuso said four municipalities remained under lockdown orders and another 12 had been evacuated. In the Madrid region alone, more than 56,500 people have been evacuated since the fires broke out last week, and 27,797 others have been ordered to stay indoors. Further evacuations have taken place in Ávila, Toledo and Valencia.

Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska told Spain’s La 1 TV channel that overnight firefighting efforts had brought “relatively positive progress.” He said authorities were “very satisfied with the work done” and would try to consolidate those gains. “We must be positive; we have the emergency under control,” he said, while adding that “weather conditions are not helping us at all.”

In central Toledo province, residents from nine of 11 evacuated towns were allowed to return home Tuesday, Al Jazeera reported. Firefighters were also dealing with blazes in neighboring Ávila and Toledo. About 800 square kilometers of land have burned, according to Al Jazeera. Spain’s ecological transition minister, Sara Aagesen, said about 77,000 hectares, or 190,000 acres, had been affected and that the wildfire in the Ávila area was the largest in the country’s recent history.

In Ávila, where more than 50,000 hectares have burned since the wildfires began, government representative Nicanor Sen said the fire had evolved “quite favourably” overnight, though “small flare-ups” were being monitored. Valencia’s government lifted a lockdown order for Vall d’Uixó after a fire that began July 25 forced about 16,000 people from 20 municipalities to evacuate.

The crisis has also strained evacuees. Psychologist Sara Casado told El Mundo that uncertainty was increasing anxiety in shelters. “They see how the hours and days go by,” she said. “That uncertainty of being here without knowing when they’ll be able to return increases their anxiety.”

In France, authorities said the spread of wildfires near Bordeaux appeared to be slowing, but firefighters were also preparing for rising temperatures. Nearly 4,000 people were evacuated Tuesday from tourist sites in the Lacanau area of Gironde, bringing the total number who have fled Gironde to well over a quarter of a million, Al Jazeera reported. “We are at a point of fragility,” Eric Brocardi, spokesperson for France’s national firefighters federation, told BFMTV. “We will continue attacking this fire despite the forecast rise in temperatures.”