Keystone-SDA
Spain which enters its third week of heat wave alert never ceases to fight fires. The fires are concentrated in the northwest and west of the country, where the army has deployed to help fight the flames.
(Keystone-ATS) Castile-et-Leon, Galicia, Asturias and ends are now the main fireplaces of forest fires.
Pedro Sánchez, who participated on Saturday in a coordination meeting on fires “in order to analyze their evolution”, said that after the departure of two water bombers loaned by France, “two new Italian Canadair tankers, provided by the European civil protection mechanism, arrived at the Matacán air base (Salamanca)”.
“The government continues to work to combat fire with all the means at its disposal,” he said on social network X, while fire management feeds the political debate every day.
A dozen roads remain cut in the country, as well as the train line between Madrid and Galicia, in the bridge of the Assumption.
Help in Galicia sent alert messages to phones, inviting the population of several dozen localities to confine themselves.
“If you receive this alert: keep your calm and read the text carefully (…) in the face of the progress of fires, avoid any unnecessary displacement and stay at home. If you are outside and you have nowhere to confine yourself, get away from the affected areas. ”
Nearly 3,500 UME soldiers (military emergency unit), called to rescue in the event of serious fires, are dispatched to the various worrying fires.
The Castile-et-Leon, by the voice of its regional president, Alfonso Fernández Mañueco (PP, curator) asked the central government of the socialist Pedro Sánchez, “faced with an exceptional situation due to extreme weather conditions and the multiplication of fires, (…) An exceptional response: in addition to regional and UME units, we need more regions ”.
The end has also made an official request for reinforcements to the central government, in a country where the extinction of fires is in principle of the jurisdiction of the regions, the central government intervening in the event of a large -scale claim.
The region has also called for the reactivation of the European civil protection mechanism requiring 100 fire trucks, 10 light helicopters and 10 amphibious helicopters.
Spain should stay on heat alert until Monday, and these extreme temperatures have very much increased the risk of fires.
Smoke from forest fires in Spain and Portugal has arrived above the United Kingdom, indicates the meteorological service is on X.
In a press release, the service explains that smoke “will continue to move over certain regions of the United Kingdom during the weekend and make the fogy/milky sky at times”.
Since the beginning of the year, more than 157,000 hectares have been reduced to ashes in Spain, according to the real -time map of the European Forest Fire Information System (Effis).