MADRID, Spain – Two firefighting planes from Sweden are expected to arrive on Sunday in Portugal after Lisbon requested support from its EU partners to fight large wildfires, the state broadcaster RTP reported on Saturday.
The request follows one made by neighboring Spain and falls under the EU disaster protection mechanism.
Around 3,500 firefighters are battling 10 major fires in Portugal. On Friday, the first fatality was reported. A volunteer lost his life in the flames in the municipality of Guarda in the northwest of the country, according to authorities.
In both countries, media reported despair and anger among those affected, who criticized the state for insufficient preparation and inadequate assistance.
Portugal and Spain have not experienced such severe and uncontrollable forest and vegetation fires in years. The situation has escalated dramatically in August. According to the Portuguese Institute for Forestry, 343,000 acres of vegetation have been destroyed in Portugal since the beginning of the year, with 158,000 acres burned in just the past two days.
In Spain, the European Forest Fire Information System, or Effis, estimates that around 388,000 acres have been destroyed since the start of the year, with about half of that occurring in August.
On Saturday alone, 19 wildfires were raging in northwest Spain, large or dangerous enough to require affected regions to request help from the central government, the state broadcaster RTVE reported. After France sent two firefighting planes in response to a request from Madrid, two more aircraft from Italy were expected.
In both countries, the heat wave that has lasted nearly two weeks is taking a toll on people and nature. Heat warnings were in place across most of Spain on Saturday, with peak temperatures of up to 109 degrees farenheit expected in some areas in the afternoon.
There was no sign of rain. Fires continued to flare up, and dry, hot winds that frequently changed direction reignited blazes that had already been brought under control. The village of Palacios de Jamuz in the Spanish province of León was partially destroyed, as shown in a video.
The increasingly frequent and prolonged heat waves caused by climate change, which dry out vegetation and soil, are not the sole reason for the intensifying fires. Forest and scrubland areas in Spain have expanded from 12 million hectares (29 million acres) to 27 million hectares (71 million acres) over the past 50 years, RTVE reported.
Compounding the problem is that forests are increasingly unused in areas experiencing significant rural depopulation, leading to the accumulation of vast amounts of flammable material.