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Forest fires in southern Europe are intensifying in the middle of a burning heat wave and great religious holidays.
Firefighters in Spain, Portugal and Greece are fighting against ferocious forest fires, because burning, dry and intense fuel, food in the region, coinciding with the big religious holidays, while global warming leaves its mark on Europe.
Spain faced 14 major fires on Friday, said Virginia Barcones, the head of emergency services, while temperatures had to increase more on weekends.
“Today will be a very difficult day again with an extreme risk of new fires,” Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez warned Friday.
The state meteorological agency has placed most of the country under extreme fire -free alerts, especially in the north and west, where the largest flames raged. The current heat wave, with temperatures exceeding 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees fahrenheit) several days this month, should linger until Monday.
In Galicia, fires closed several highways and stopped high -speed rail services in Madrid. The EU European Forest Forest Information System has indicated that forest fires in Spain this year have already burned 158,000 hectares (390,000 acres), an area the size of the London metropolitan.
Friday marked the feast of the hypothesis in Spain and Portugal, a large Catholic festival generally observed with family gatherings and processions. In Portugal, nearly 4,000 firefighters struggled against seven active fires, while the authorities extended an alert state until Sunday. The government has also requested aid from the European Union under its civil protection mechanism.
Earlier, Spain received two Air Bombers from the European Union from the European Union.
Elsewhere in southern Europe, Greece continued to fight with a major forest fire for four days on the island of Chios. Several night evacuations took place while the flames were spreading in the northern region of the island. On Friday, two planes and two helicopters fell water during quieter winds.
After devastating fires earlier this week in the west of Greece, the firefighters remained on the alert raised outside Athens and in the southern areas, where high winds and high temperatures have increased the danger.
Through the Balkans and southern Europe, the demand for EU shared fire fighting resources has soaked this year. Bulgaria, Montenegro and Albania have all called for help in recent days, because the system has already been deployed as often as throughout last year’s fire season.
The ecumenical patriarch Bartholomew, the spiritual leader of the Orthodox Christians in the world, expressed his solidarity with the victims of forest fires during the prayers for the dormitory of the Virgin Mary, one of the most important days of celebration in faith.
