{"id":354292,"date":"2025-08-18T13:57:13","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T13:57:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/354292\/"},"modified":"2025-08-18T13:57:13","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T13:57:13","slug":"spain-portugal-grapple-with-widespread-fires-death-toll-climbs-to-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/354292\/","title":{"rendered":"Spain, Portugal grapple with widespread fires; death toll climbs to 6"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong> The Iberian Peninsula is still battling widespread wildfires on Monday as the total death toll rises to six, with four in Spain and two in Portugal. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"selectionShareable\">Spain is battling more than 40 active wildfires, with two-thirds concentrated in the Castilla and Leon region, <a href=\"https:\/\/news.az\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">News.Az<\/a> reports, citing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aa.com.tr\/en\/environment\/spain-portugal-battle-widespread-wildfires-as-death-toll-rises-to-6\/3662434\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">foreign media<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"selectionShareable\">A high-speed line between Madrid and Galicia has been suspended for five consecutive days, while 16 roads are closed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"selectionShareable\">In an interview with broadcaster Cadena SER, Spanish Defense Minister Margarita Robles said that their Military Emergency Unit has never seen a fire situation like this in &#8220;its 20 years of existence.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"selectionShareable\">The ongoing fires in Spain have already burnt more than 115,000 hectares (284,171 acres) of land and forced thousands of people to evacuate.<\/p>\n<p class=\"selectionShareable\">Spain\u2019s meteorological agency Aemet has issued a red alert for certain regions, with temperatures expected to reach 44C (111F).<\/p>\n<p class=\"selectionShareable\">In Portugal, provisional official data showed that by Aug. 18, wildfires had scorched 185,753 hectares (459,100 acres), surpassing the total area burned in all of 2024, daily Diario de Noticias reported.<\/p>\n<p class=\"selectionShareable\">As some fronts of the ongoing <a href=\"https:\/\/news.az\/news\/spanish-wildfires-spread-to-picos-de-europa-pilgrimage-route-closed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">wildfires<\/a> across the country began to subside, the city of Covilha on Monday issued a new alert, warning that the fire remains out of control.<\/p>\n<p class=\"selectionShareable\">More than 80 municipalities are still at maximum risk of fire, according to the Portuguese Institute of the Sea and Atmosphere (IPMA).<\/p>\n<p class=\"selectionShareable\">Due to heightened fire risk, the government has extended the alert, in place since Aug. 2, through Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/news.az\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">News.Az<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Iberian Peninsula is still battling widespread wildfires on Monday as the total death toll rises to six,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":354293,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5312],"tags":[2000,299,73954,3046,104,48602],"class_list":{"0":"post-354292","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-spain","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-iberian-peninsula","11":"tag-portugal","12":"tag-spain","13":"tag-wildfire"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115050122171447581","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=354292"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354292\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/354293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=354292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=354292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=354292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}