Fires in Spain: 30,000 hectares ravaged in 24 hours

Some 373,000 hectares had burned in Spain since the beginning of the year as of Tuesday morning, 30,000 more than on Monday and a figure that is constantly increasing, according to the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS), which uses Copernicus data.

Since EFFIS began recording in 2006, this is the worst year for Spain in terms of area burned by flames, surpassing the previous record set in 2022 (306,000 hectares burned).

The majority of this area has burned in the large fires that have been affecting the provinces of Zamora and León in Castile and León (northwest), Ourense in Galicia (northwest), and Cáceres in Extremadura (west) for the past ten days.

Thousands of people from dozens of villages have been evacuated, dozens of roads have been cut off, and rail traffic between Madrid and Galicia has been suspended. Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is expected to visit the affected areas of Zamora and Cáceres at midday on Tuesday.

Although it will take some time to extinguish these fires, the end on Monday of the heatwave that ravaged Spain for 16 days offers hope that the situation will improve.

This meteorological change will result in a "reduction of 10 to 12 degrees in maximum temperatures, to which must also be added the increase in humidity indices," explained Nicanor Sen, government delegate (prefect) of Castile and León, on public television TVE.