Forest blaze kills 14 firefighters
At least 14 firefighters died today while trying to control a forest blaze that destroyed about 5,000 hectares (12,000 acres) of woodland and forced hundreds of people to evacuate their villages in drought-stricken Spain, an Interior Ministry spokesman said.
The 14 went out in two groups to try to bring the fire under control in the central province of Guadalajara, the spokesman said. Police fear at least one more person may have died.
An unidentified woman in the affected town of Luzon told Spanish National Television that one of the firefighters’ two lorries was found burned out.
The fire began on Saturday afternoon in the Cueva de los Casares natural park. It was still raging out of control late Sunday. Police said sparks from a barbecue that had not been fully extinguished had caused the fire.
The blaze had so far charred an estimated 5,000 hectares (12,000 acres) of pine woodland. It was raging on two fronts, aided by blustery winds and summer temperatures of up to 40 Celsius (104 Fahrenheit).
Spain is suffering its worst drought since records began in the late 1940s.
Some 400 residents from four villages in the area of the fire were evacuated, although many returned to their homes Sunday.
Elsewhere in Spain, six people suffered light burns and more than 1,000 hectares (2,500 acres) hectares of woodland were destroyed in the northwestern province of Zamora on Saturday. The fire was still burning today.
In the northeastern province of Zaragoza, several hundred people were evacuated from a residential area and a camp site overnight after fire broke out in the Monasterio de Piedra parkland. The blaze was brought under control early Sunday.
Police on Saturday arrested a 63-year-old man believed to have started a fire on land close to a petrochemical plant outside the south-central town of Puertollano on Saturday. The fire was close to being extinguished at midday Sunday, Spanish National Radio said.
Thousands of hectares (acres) of wood and scrubland are destroyed each year in summer fires in Spain and Portugal.
