Six killed as fires hit hundreds of forests in Portugal, Spain

Firefighters and civilians attempt to subdue wildfire flames in Vigo, northwestern Spain, October 15, 2017. (Photo by AFP)

Three people have been killed in Portugal as the country is hit by a record number of forest fires, and three more have died in Spain where blazes sparked by arsonists have been fanned by strong winds from Hurricane Ophelia.

In total, some 440 fires were burning across Portugal Sunday, which is “the worst day since the beginning of the year,” according to a spokeswoman for the national civil protection agency, Patricia Gaspar.

In addition to the three dead, some 25 people had been injured, she said, with thousands of firefighters deployed and three motorways, including one linking Lisbon and Porto, closed.

This year has also seen Portugal’s worst ever fire in June near Pedrogao Grande in the center of the country, which killed 64 people and injured 250.

The recent fires have been caused by “higher than average temperatures for the season and the cumulative effect of drought, which has been felt since the start of the year,” Gaspar said.

A Portuguese man poses in front of his burnt truck wreckage in the village of Barraca da Boavista, in Pedrogao Grande, on August 9, 2017. (Photo by AFP)

In Spain, authorities were blaming arson for some 17 fires which have caused three deaths.

“They are absolutely intentional fires, premeditated, caused by people who know what they are doing,” the head of the regional government, Alberto Nunez Feijoo, said.

Fifteen separate wildfires which posed a risk to built-up areas were raging across the region of Galicia, he said.

The flames were being fanned by wind gusts of up to 90 kilometers (55 miles) per hour as Hurricane Ophelia moved north off the coast of Spain towards Ireland, he told private broadcaster La Sexta.

Feijoo said “thousands” of firefighters, soldiers and locals were battling the blazes.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, who is from Galicia, expressed his condolences to the victims in a Twitter message.

Five wildfires were raging near Vigo, Galicia’s biggest city, forcing the evacuation of a shopping mall and a PSA Peugeot Citroen factory on the outskirts of the city.

The flames had reached O Castro, a large hilltop park in the heart of Vigo with sweeping views of the city's estuary, Spanish public television station TVE reported.

The national weather office is forecasting rain and cooler temperatures in Galicia beginning early on Monday which officials hope will help put out the flames.

Meteorologists say Ophelia is the most powerful hurricane recorded so far east in the Atlantic and the first since 1939 to travel so far north.