Spain battles 20 major wildfires amid scorching heat, deploys more troops

By Guillermo Martinez and Ana Cantero

VILLARDEVÓS (Reuters) -Scorching heat hampered efforts to contain 20 major wildfires across Spain on Sunday, prompting the government to deploy an additional 500 troops from the military emergency unit to support firefighting operations.

In the northwestern region of Galicia, several fires have converged to form a large blaze, forcing the closure of highways and rail services to the region.

Southern Europe is experiencing one of its worst wildfire seasons in two decades, with Spain among the hardest-hit countries.

In the past week alone, fires there have claimed three lives and burned more than 115,000 hectares, while neighbouring Portugal also battles widespread blazes.

Temperatures are expected to reach up to 45 degrees Celsius (113 Fahrenheit) in some areas on Sunday, Spanish national weather agency AEMET said.

"There are still some challenging days ahead and, unfortunately, the weather is not on our side," Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez told a news conference in Ourense, one of the most affected areas.

He announced an increase in military reinforcements, bringing the total number of troops deployed across Spain to 1,900.

Virginia Barcones, director general of emergency services, told Spanish public TV temperatures were expected to drop from Tuesday, but for now the weather conditions were "very adverse".

"Today there are extremely high temperatures with an extreme risk of fires, which complicates the firefighting efforts," Barcones said.

VILLAGERS RESORT TO BUCKETS

In the village of Villardevos in Galicia, desperate neighbours have organised to fight the flames on their own with water buckets as the area was left without electricity to power water pumps.

"The fireplanes come in from all sides, but they don't come here," Basilio Rodriguez, a resident, told Reuters on Saturday.

Added Lorea Pascual, another local resident: "It's insurmountable, it couldn't be worse".

Interior ministry data show 27 people have been arrested and 92 were under investigation for suspected arson since June.

In neighbouring Portugal, wildfires have burnt some 155,000 hectares of vegetation so far this year, according to provisional data from the ICNF forestry protection institute - three times the average for this period between 2006 to 2024. About half of that area burned just in the past three days.

Thousands of firefighters were battling eight large blazes in central and northern Portugal, the largest of them near Piodao, a scenic, mountainous area popular with tourists.

Another blaze in Trancoso, further north, has now been raging for eight days. A smaller fire a few miles east claimed a local resident's life on Friday - the first this season.

(Reporting by Guillermo Martinez, Ana Cantero and Andrei Khalip; Editing by Andrei Khalip and Clelia Oziel)