Dozens of houses were destroyed, tens of thousands of hectares of forest and bushes were destroyed.
Deadly forest fires engulfed Portugal. At least seven people have died in the Aveiro and Viseu areas.
Reuters reports this.
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Authorities have mobilized more than 5,000 firefighters. According to the civil defense department, a 270-strong Spanish military emergency team with bulldozers has been sent to the same Viseu area, while two heavy-duty water-dropping planes have arrived from Morocco, with two more on the way. Spain, Italy and France have already sent two aircraft to help fight the blazes.
“We are in a stressful situation and at the limit of our capabilities,” Civil Defense chief Duarte Costa told CNN Portugal.
He added that the reinforcements would allow for some rotation of Portugal's exhausted firefighters and aircraft maintenance workers.
More than 90,000 hectares have burned in major fires since Saturday, bringing the total area burned this year to at least 124,000 hectares, according to the European Wildfire Information Service. Civil Defense Commander Andre Fernandes told reporters that temperatures had been above 30 degrees Celsius since the weekend, and authorities expected cooler air to help fight the fires in the coming days. However, the weather conditions overall remained unfavorable.
Police said at least some of the dozens of fires across Portugal were caused by arson motivated by possible commercial interests, malice or criminal negligence, and Prime Minister Luis Montenegro vowed to crack down on such crimes. Thus, since Saturday, 12 people have been arrested on suspicion of arson in the districts of Aveiro, Leiria, Castelo Branco, Porto and Braga.
Recall that the forest fire that broke out in the national park on Tenerife – a Spanish island in the Canary Islands – spread to 300 hectares and led to the evacuation of five villages and restrictions on movement in the area. In particular, the villages of Arrate, Civisaya, Media Montanha and Ahafona were evacuated.
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