Medium A severe heat wave continues As a result, thousands of residents were evacuated. On Tuesday evening, efforts continued in Portugal to contain the fire that broke out four days ago in the southwest of the country, with more than a thousand firefighters deployed by ten planes in nearby Odemira. A fire has been burning in the southern Portuguese tourist region of the Algarve since Saturday. “Approximately ten thousand hectares” of land, according to a recent count by Civil Defense Commander Vitor Vaz Pinto.

In the evening, the wildfire continued to spread “on both fronts,” Vaz Pinto explained, adding that firefighters responded to several fires that had rekindled in the area.

According to reports confirmed by local media and authorities, the fire damaged a house and its annexes and a guest house for rural tourism. and delay towards 1500 A person from twenty villages and vacationers from rural tourist guesthouses and a camp and about a hundred animals.

said farmer Ana Costa 40 Age “It was terrible. There was fire everywhere and we had to deal with it. There was no one to help us, luckily three of my friends came.”

Ended Tuesday evening 3200 Fire Extinguishing Components and15 Firefighting aircraft are ready to tackle fires across the country. And touched the heat40 degrees Celsius in some areas, after setting annual records 2023 to reach 46,4 degrees Celsius on Monday in Santarem in the center of the country, according to preliminary estimates from the Portuguese Meteorological Agency.

A state of alert was in effect on both sides of the border on Tuesday, with much of the Iberian Peninsula on alert as Spain also experiences a severe heat wave.

And the third heat wave this summer is expected to peak on Wednesday, the Spanish Meteorological Agency said. It will continue with status till Thursday 12 Andalucia, a Spanish province in the Madrid region, Castile-La Mancha and the Basque Country and its surroundings, were on red alert on Wednesday.

Over a thousand hectares burned in Spain last weekend. A fourth major fire broke out in Extremadura, neighboring Portugal’s Valencia de Alcántara, on Monday afternoon, with fire crews unable to contain it overnight.

The Iberian Peninsula is on the front lines of global warming in Europe, with frequent heat waves, droughts and fires. The place was on fire 100 thousand hectares per year 2023 Compared to Spain and Portugal, according to provisional statistics 400 A total of thousand per annum 2022.

France 24/AFP