Wrath of nature: Spain grapples with deadly wildfires amid sweltering heatwave
Firefighters have been battling wildfires in parts of Spain, as the country faces its warmest early summer in decades, with temperatures breaching the 40 degree Celsius mark
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Firefighters have been battling wildfires in several regions of Spain. Four major blazes in Catalonia are threatening villages, and have destroyed thousands of hectares of forest and farmland. The fires have been sparked by an unseasonably early heat wave. AFP
Firefighters operate at the site of a wildfire in Pumarejo de Tera near Zamora, northern Spain, on 18 June, 2022. Firefighters on Sunday continued to fight against multiple fires in Spain, one of which ravaged nearly 20,000 hectares of land, on the last day of an extreme heat wave which crushed the country, with peaks at 43 degrees. AFP
Thousands of hectares of wooded hill land in northwestern Spain have been burnt by the wildfire, which has forced the evacuation of hundreds of people from nearby villages. Officials said the blaze in the Sierra de Culebra mountain range started Wednesday during a dry electric storm. AP
The soaring temperatures are in line with scientists' predictions that such phenomena will now strike earlier in the year thanks to global warming. Here, a firefight plane drops a fire retardant on a burning area of San Martin de Unx in northern Spain, Sunday, 19 June, 2022. AP
Firefighters, however, said cooler temperatures overnight has helped them make progress in their battle against the flames. Here, trees burn as flames and smoke engulf the top of a hill in a forest fire in Artazu, northern Spain in the early hours of Sunday, 19 June, 2022. AP