Wildfire forces 1400 people to evacuate in western Spain

At least 1,400 civilians in Spain have been forced to evacuate their homes due to a large wildfire raging in the country’s west.

Those evacuated on Friday were residents of the villages as well as holidaymakers from a number of mountain campsites, authorities told AFP.

They were taken overnight to nearby towns, the Spanish government said in a statement to reporters on Saturday.

The blaze broke out on Thursday in the western Sierra de Gata mountain range amid scorching temperatures across the European country.

The wildfire has burned over 5,000 hectares (12,400 acres) of land, authorities said. Some 300 firefighters, backed by water-bomber aircraft, were battling the wildfire.

“Houses have been burned, I don’t know how many, two, three. Sheep have been burned. It's a tragedy for the village,” Jose Javier Gonzalez Iglesia, a deputy mayor in one of the affected areas, told Spanish public television.

{{Gallery}}
The cause of the fire is still undetermined but “everything seems to indicate” that arson was to blame, the head of the regional government of the western Extremadura region, Guillermo Fernandez Vara, told reporters.

“When a fire is concentrated in a very specific area, it is because the hand of man must have played some kind of a role, because it is not hotter and drier in the Sierra de Gata than in the rest of Extremadura,” he added.

Meanwhile, at least 600 other firefighters were battling four other wildfires burning in Spain’s southeastern region of Murcia on Friday.

The fires have so far burned 620 hectares (1,500 acres) of land.

The head of Murcia’s regional government, Pedro Antonio Sanchez, said on Saturday that firefighters were “working intensely to stabilize” the flames.

Spain’s Agricultural Ministry has warned that the risk of wildfires is high across most of the country due to soaring temperatures, strong winds and parched vegetation.

Wildfires have destroyed over 54,000 hectares of agricultural and forest land in Spain this year.

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.co.uk