MADRID
— At least 35 people have been killed and dozens more injured by
wildfires in Portugal and northern Spain, as strong winds from a
hurricane fanned hundreds of blazes sweeping across densely forested
territory.
The
authorities in Portugal declared a state of emergency in affected areas
over the weekend, when about 500 fires were reported in the central and
northern regions, and they raised the death toll to 31. About 4,000
firefighters were working to extinguish at least 65 blazes Monday
morning.
Across
the border in Spain, fires reached the outskirts of the port city of
Vigo, forcing the temporary closing of a car factory. Television news
reports and videos shared on social media showed residents forming human
chains to pass water buckets in order to help put out flames.
The
Spanish authorities said that more than 90 fires were burning in the
northern regions of Galicia and Asturias. Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy,
who is from Galicia, traveled on Monday to his home region, where the
authorities confirmed that at least four people had died.
The
area also saw some relief, however, as rain began to fall early Monday
and was expected to intensify. “The rain has now been helping us,” Ángel
Rodal, the mayor of Baiona, told the television channel Antena 3 early
Monday, as flames neared his coastal town.
The fires had spread rapidly since Sunday, in part because of strong winds tied to Hurricane Ophelia in the Atlantic Ocean, Spanish meteorologists said. But investigators are looking at human causes.
Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the leader of Galicia, said on Monday that many of the fires had started as acts of arson.
“The only thing we desire is that these criminals pay for what they have done,” he told a news conference on Monday.
While
touring Galicia on Monday, Mr. Rajoy also suggested that arson was
behind the fires. “It’s impossible that this could have happened in
normal conditions,” he said.
Even
so, the fires are certain to revive the debate over whether the
authorities have allocated sufficient resources to forestry management,
as well as Portugal’s reliance on volunteer firefighters and its failure
to punish landowners who leave forests abandoned.
The
situation in Portugal is complicated by the fact that the state owns
about 3 percent of the country’s forests and does not have a proper
registry of forest landowners. Forest management has been further
weakened by budget cuts during the recent financial crisis.
Two
weeks ago, Galicia dismissed 436 forest rangers who had been hired on
temporary contracts over the summer months. Asked to justify the
decision, Mr. Feijóo had said at a news conference that the risk of fire
along the Atlantic coast had “lowered significantly.”
Portugal’s forests have been burning repeatedly during an unusually dry and warm summer. In June, 64 people were killed
near the town of Pedrógão Grande, many of them trapped in their cars as
they tried to escape the flames. It was the country’s most deadly fire.
The
effects of the fires could be seen as far as Britain. The dust from the
blazes, combined with the remnants of Hurricane Ophelia, gave the sky a
reddish hue that is normally seen only at sunrise or sunset, the Met office said.
