(Madrid) Cooler weather came on Monday to bolster firefighters battling what could be the biggest wildfire in Spain’s history.
Posted at 9:25 a.m.
Updated at 9:26 a.m.
The flames burning in the Sierra de Culebra mountains – in the northwest of the country, in the province of Zamora – have destroyed at least 310 square kilometers. The official Efe news agency reports that this makes it the most destructive fire since 2004, when the flames ravaged just under 300 square kilometers in the province of Huelva, in the south-west of the country.
If the Zamora fire is not fully contained, officials said Monday, at least there are no more flames and it has stopped spreading.
A drop in mercury allowed some 650 firefighters supported by water bombers to draw a perimeter around the blaze that broke out on Wednesday. Residents of 18 villages have been evacuated over the past week.
Elsewhere, some 900 people have been evacuated from 13 villages in the Navarre region in the north of the country, where two wildfires are still burning.
Several heat records were broken across Spain in the past week, and officials were on high alert for new outbreaks. Experts link abnormally hot weather to global warming.
In Germany, heavy rain that fell overnight from Sunday to Monday and continued Monday essentially extinguished two large fires southwest of Berlin. The fires were spaced about twenty kilometers apart. Hundreds of people who had been evacuated as a precaution over the weekend were able to return home. Roads have also been reopened.
Hundreds of firefighters remain on site for fear that the wind will revive the embers.