In 2022, a particularly bad year for wildfires in Europe, Spain was the continent’s worst-hit country.
Spain is experiencing long-term drought after three years of below-average rainfall. Ximo Puig, the regional leader of Valencia who accompanied Sanchez, expressed hope that “good news” would be announced later Monday. Sanchez said nearly 1,700 people were evacuated in Valencia and the neighbouring region of Aragon and 14 firefighters were lightly injured. The mercury was set to reach 19C on Monday. “We have the opportunity (to extinguish) it because temperatures have dropped,” she added. The blaze “is not advancing beyond the perimeter that was established,” government official Pilar Bernabe Garcia told reporters. Over 500 firefighters backed by 20 water-dropping aircraft battled the blaze on Monday near Villanueva de Viver, local officials said. “We are leaving winter and we are already experiencing wildfires that are typical of the summer months,” he said, visiting the affected area of eastern Valencia. Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said the blaze proved “the climate emergency exists”. The fire broke out near the eastern village of Villanueva de Viver, where unseasonably warm temperatures neared 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit) on Friday and has already forced the evacuation of nearly 1,700 people. The blaze has ravaged 3,800 hectares (9,500 acres) of mainly forest since Thursday and is the first to be recorded so early in a season, which officials say now runs from spring to autumn, rather than just the summer. Spanish firefighters took advantage of milder temperatures on Monday to make progress in the battle to contain the country’s first major fire of the year. The fire broke out in the eastern region of Valencia - Copyright POOL/AFP CRAIG BROUGH
0 kommentar(er)
