Portugal, Spain and Greece also affected

On Wednesday July 13, the fire was still progressing in the Ourem forest, north of Lisbon, in Portugal. Fanned by the wind and record temperatures, with 46 degrees in the shade, the fire has been raging since the end of last week. For the moment, one death is to be deplored. “My animals have nothing left to eat, all the work of a life has gone up in smoke”, laments a farmer. In the Algarve, in the south of Portugal, the fumes reached homes, but no houses were destroyed. More than 3,000 hectares were devastated.

In Spain, in Salamanca, the smoke is so thick that you can no longer see the sky or the sun. The fire is out of control in this mountainous area, which is difficult to access. In Greece, off the western coast of the island of Samos, a firefighting helicopter crashed. Of the four crew members, only one has so far been recovered alive.