Extreme heat and strong winds sparked fierce “fire whirls” as wildfires engulfed several homes and forced the evacuation of hundreds near a UNESCO-listed national park in northern Spain, authorities said Monday.
Thirteen separate fires erupted across the northern Castile and León region, prompting about 700 residents in six villages to flee their homes.
By Monday morning, four fires remained active, said Juan Carlos Suarez-Quinones, the regional government’s environment chief, while firefighters had contained the other nine.
On Sunday, soaring temperatures fueled dangerous fire whirls near Las Medallas park, forcing firefighters to pull back and allowing flames to consume homes in the adjacent village, Suarez-Quinones added.
“This occurs when temperatures reach around 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) in a very confined valley and then suddenly [the fire] enters a more open and oxygenated area. This produces a fireball, a fire whirl,” he said.
“This explosive and surprising phenomenon was very dangerous. It disrupted all the work that had been done, forcing us to start practically from scratch,” he added.
Scientists say the Mediterranean region’s hotter, drier summers put it at high risk of wildfires. Once fires start, dry vegetation and strong winds can cause them to spread rapidly and burn out of control, sometimes provoking fire whirls.
A prolonged heat wave in Spain continued Monday, with temperatures set to reach 42 degrees Celsius (108 degrees Fahrenheit) in some regions.
Domingo Aparicio, 77, was evacuated to a nearby town from his home in Cubo de Benavente on Sunday after a warehouse in front of his home burned down.
“How am I supposed to feel? It’s always shocking for people close to the catastrophe,” he said.
Two or three fires may have been started by lightning strikes, Suarez-Quinones said, but there were indications that most were the result of arson, which he described as “environmental terrorism.”
In the northern part of neighboring Portugal, nearly 700 firefighters battled a blaze that started Saturday in Trancoso, about 350 kilometers (200 miles) northeast of Lisbon.
So far this year, about 52,000 hectares (200 square miles), or 0.6% of Portugal’s total area, have burned – exceeding the 2006-2024 average for the same period by about 10,000 hectares, according to the European Forest Fire Information System.
Firefighters also battled blazes in Navarra in northeastern Spain and in Huelva in the southwest, authorities said.
