Spain battled multiple major wildfires on Tuesday in what has become one of its most destructive fire seasons in recent decades, even as temperatures eased across the Iberian Peninsula.
Thousands of firefighters, supported by soldiers and water-dropping aircraft, worked to contain blazes ripping through parched woodlands. Conditions were especially severe in northwestern Spain, where the national weather agency AEMET warned of a “very high or extreme” fire risk, particularly in the Galicia region.
In Galicia, fires have devastated small, sparsely populated towns, often forcing residents to act before firefighters could reach them.
Spain’s Interior Ministry announced that German firefighting units arrived Tuesday to assist, deploying more than 20 vehicles to battle an ongoing blaze in Jarilla, located in the Extremadura region bordering Portugal.
Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez visited the area and linked the crisis to extreme weather. Temperatures dropped by about 7 degrees Fahrenheit (4 Celsius) on Tuesday following a 16-day heatwave, which brought several days above 104 degrees Fahrenheit (40 Celsius), according to AEMET.
“Science tells us, and common sense confirms it—especially for farmers, ranchers, and rural communities—that the climate is changing. The climate emergency is becoming more frequent, more intense, and has an increasingly greater impact,” Sánchez said.
Read Also: Greek Opposition Slams Sale To Israel’s SK Group
Experts say land management has worsened the problem. Large areas of abandoned farmland and unmanaged vegetation in depopulated villages have created an excessive buildup of wildfire fuel, noted Adrián Regos, an ecologist with the Biological Mission of Galicia research institute.
So far this year, wildfires in Spain have killed four people and scorched more than 382,000 hectares—about 1,475 square miles—according to the European Union’s Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS). That area is more than twice the size of metropolitan London and more than six times the average amount of land burned during the same period between 2006 and 2024.
Air quality worsened across much of Spain last week due to smoke, the EU’s Copernicus climate monitoring agency reported. Smoke plumes even reached France, the UK, and Scandinavia.
Authorities say many fires were human-caused. Spain’s Civil Guard reported that 23 people have been arrested on suspicion of arson, while another 89 remain under investigation.
In neighboring Portugal, more than 3,700 firefighters were also deployed Tuesday, battling dozens of blazes—including four major ones in the north and center of the country.
