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Join on Telegram Rabat – Over 1,000 firefighters have started fighting massive wildfires in Spain and Portugal, as authorities issued evacuation orders to residents and tourists around the areas under threat.
Authorities have instructed around 1,400 people to evacuate, as wildfires spread towards Algarve, one of Portugal’s top tourist destinations.
The fire has spread across more than 7,000 hectares with highly flammable pine and eucalyptus trees, after having erupted in the municipality of Odemira on Saturday.
The country has been reckoning with another heatwave-filled summer, which has seen record temperatures of over 40 degrees Celsius.
Odemira’s mayor, Helder Guerreiro, told reporters that the situation was “critical, difficult and complex.”
Spain, Portugal, as well as other countries in the region such as Morocco have suffered from wildfires in recent years due to heatwaves and rising temperatures as a result of climate change.
On Tuesday, Morocco’s Center for Water and Forestry (ANEF) announced an extreme risk of forest fires in several Moroccan provinces, as well as high and medium level risks in other regions.
The country has had a record with wildfires over the past few years, which prompted it to purchase several new firefighting planes to combat the threat.
The European Union’s climate observatory, the Copernicus Climate Change Service, reported on Tuesday that July 2023 was the hottest month ever recorded on Earth.
In light of the rising temperatures in the country, Portuguese climate authorities have also put an extreme wildfire alert on more than 120 municipalities in the country.
“The weather conditions we are going to experience in the coming days means any small occurrence [of fire] could become a big one,” said Secretary of State for Home Affairs Patricia Gaspar.
