The team of fire fighters coordinated by the Balearic government that was sent to help fight the forest fires in Castile and León has returned to the Balearics bringing with it experience that will enable it to ‘recognise and identify a major emergency and respond with greater assurance’. This was stated in statements to the media by the Director General of Emergencies and the Interior, Pablo Gárriz, who highlighted that the complexity of the fires on the mainland has provided the Balearic detachment with added professional value and important learning for the participants.
‘The techniques are different from those we usually use due to the magnitude of the fires. We have resorted to backfires, which fortunately we have never had to use, but it serves as a learning experience,’ he said. The second vice-president and minister for the Presidency, Coordination of Government Action and Local Cooperation, Antònia Estarellas, emphasised the coordination achieved between the different institutions and administrations that participated in the contingent and the synergies created. ‘This creates a team and means that when something happens, battles are avoided and we can act together,’ she concluded.
A 16-day heat wave Spain suffered this month is “the most intense on record,“ the national meteorological agency has said. With forest fires still burning across northern and western Spain, the AEMET meteorological agency said provisional readings for the Aug. 3-18 heat wave exceeded the last record, set in July 2022, and showed an average temperature 4.6 degrees Celsius higher than previous events.
AEMET said a 10-day period from Aug. 8 to Aug. 17, was the hottest 10 consecutive days recorded in Spain since “at least 1950.” The heat wave exacerbated tinderbox conditions that have fueled wildfires, which have killed four people and forced thousands out of their homes. Four people have also died in fires in Portugal, where emergency services are still struggling to control blazes.
More than 1,100 deaths in Spain have been linked to this month’s heat wave, according to an estimate released by the Carlos III Health Institute. The institute had already said that 1,060 deaths in July could be attributed to excess heat, a 50% rise on the figure for July 2024. Since it began keeping records in 1975, AEMET has registered 77 heat waves in Spain, with six going 4 C or more above the average. Five of those have been since 2019.
Scientists say climate change is driving longer, more intense and more frequent heat waves worldwide.
The agency said that it is “a scientific fact that current summers are hotter than in previous decades.”
“Each summer is not always going to be hotter than the previous one, but there is a clear trend towards much more extreme summers. What is key is adapting to, and mitigating, climate change,” it added.
Fires burning in northern regions have destroyed more than 350,000 hectares in the past weeks and a record of more than 400,000 hectares since the start of the year. Authorities say they are only now starting to control the fires. Firefighters and water-bombing planes from nine European countries have been helping Spanish emergency services.
Hundreds of people are still kept away from their homes though many have started returning in the past 24 hours. Portugal announced its fourth fatality from the current wildfires on Saturday. The 45-year-old fireman had been critically injured battling the flames last week.
More than 60,000 hectares of land have burned in Portugal in the current heat wave and more than 278,000 hectares since the start of the year.