Spain wildfire forces evacuation of 2500 people

A wind-stoked wildfire that officials suspect was started deliberately has forced the evacuation of nearly 2,500 people from their homes in three villages in western Spain, local authorities said Saturday.

Around 1,000 residents were evacuated early Saturday from the town of Hoyos, a day after another 1,400 people were ordered to leave their homes in two other nearby towns, the government of the Extremadura region said in a statement.

"The wind fanned the flames and caused the fire to spread, forcing the evacuation of Hoyos due to the proximity of the blaze and especially the smoke," local Red Cross official Jose Lopez Santana told public radio.

The blaze, which broke out on Thursday in the Sierra de Gata mountain range amid scorching temperatures, has ravaged more than 6,500 hectares (16,000 acres) of land.

Hundreds of firefighters, including a contingent sent from neighbouring Portugal, backed by 16 water-carrying planes and helicopters were battling the wildfire.

Firefighters took residents of a retirement home in Hoyos to a hospital in the nearby town of Coria.
"For families it is very hard not being able to remain at home but saving lives must be our top priority," the head of the regional government, Guillermo Fernandez Vara, told reporters.

The cause of the fire was still undetermined but "everything seems to indicate" arson, he added.

"When a fire is concentrated in a very specific area it is because the hand of man must have played some kind of a role, because it is not hotter and drier in the Sierra de Gata than in the rest of Extremadura," he said.

- 'Colour will return' -

Firefighters said strong, constantly shifting winds, thick smoke and difficulty in accessing the blaze were making it hard to put out the fire.
"Right now we see everything blackened, but colour will return to the Sierra de Gata, I assure you," Fernandez Vara said in a video message to residents.

The wildfire comes as dry hot conditions strike other European countries.

A new all-time temperature high in Germany was set on Friday in the town of Kitzingen in northern Bavaria, where the mercury reached 40.3 degrees Celsius (104.5 degrees Fahrenheit).

Four other wildfires that burning in the southeastern region of Murcia since Thursday were now either under control or stabilised, firefighters said.

The fires, which were all started by lightning strikes, have so far burned over 700 hectares of land.

A fifth fire broke out due to a lightning strike on Friday afternoon but was quickly put out, local officials said.
The risk of wildfires was high in western Spain and large parts of the country's Mediterranean coast on Saturday because of high temperatures and low air humidity levels, according to national weather agency AEMET.

Wildfires have destroyed more than 54,000 hectares of agricultural and forest land in Spain this year, exceeding the amount burned during the last two years combined, according to the agriculture ministry.

Most of the wildfires happened in July, the country's hottest month on record.

The average temperature in Spain last month was 26.5 degrees Celsius (79.7 Fahrenheit), the agency said Wednesday.

August 2003 had previously been the hottest month on record with an average temperature of 26.2 degrees Celsius.