Firefighters quell most of Portugal's worst wildfires, fight still on

Thousands of firefighters tackling deadly wildfires in central and northern Portugal had largely doused the flames in the Aveiro district, one of the worst-hit, as of Thursday morning, and were focusing on more than a dozen blazes still raging elsewhere.

After five days of ravaging tens of thousands of hectares of forest and farmland, destroying houses and claiming seven lives, the fires in Oliveira de Azemeis, Albergaria-a-Velha and Sever da Vouga, in the northwestern district of Aveiro, were no longer listed as active on the civil protection service's fires portal.

The flames left parking lots with lines of burnt cars, trees and roads with smoke still billowing in Albergaria-a-Velha.

"It was horrific, horrible, the fire passed by very quickly because of the wind but it was really bad," Maria Rodrigues, resident of the village of Macieira further north, told Reuters.

She worried about her 11 sheep. "Now they don't have anything to eat because there's nothing on the mountain," she said.

Cooler air temperatures with more humidity since Wednesday have helped the firefighting efforts after an unseasonably hot streak during which gusts of wind had fanned the flames.

The weather agency IPMA predicted maximum temperatures of 22-27 degrees Celsius (72-81 degrees Fahrenheit) on Thursday across the central and northern regions, well below those recorded in recent days, which exceeded 30˚C.

On Wednesday, a 270-strong Spanish military emergencies team joined the effort to help exhausted emergency workers in the central Vizeu district adjacent to Aveiro. As many as 12 aircraft were backing hundreds of firefighters combating flames near the town of Castro Daire in the district.

Spain, Italy, France and Morocco have sent water-bombing aircraft.

Data from the European Forest Fire Information Service showed that large-scale blazes had burned an area of more than 105,000 hectares since Saturday, making this year's total of some 140,000 ha the widest burned area since 2017, when Portugal suffered two devastating waves of wildfires that killed more than 100 people.

That was well above the annual average of around 94,000 ha in the 2006-2023 period.

At least some of the dozens of fires across Portugal have been started by arsonists, motivated by possible commercial interest, spite or criminal negligence, authorities said. Police have arrested at least 14 people since Saturday suspected of starting fires.

Reuters