Two new wildfires have broken out in Spain as the country endures one of its worst fire seasons on record, local authorities said on Sunday.
Strong winds have reignited and spread a wildfire near Lleida in Catalonia into neighbouring areas.
The blaze is burning across several ravines near the village of Senet, with flames rising high along the mountain ridges.
A total of 55 firefighters are working to contain the fire. No evacuations have been ordered so far.
In the western province of Cáceres, another fire started after a lorry caught fire, according to the Guardia Civil in a post on X.
The flames then spread to nearby scrubland, prompting the evacuation of more than 800 residents from the villages of Casas de Millán and Grimaldo.
Wildfires across Europe this summer have already destroyed hundreds of thousands of hectares of land and killed several people.
This year’s weather conditions have been especially favourable for fires, with wet winters producing abundant vegetation, followed by high temperatures and drought in spring and summer.
Under the current climate, events of this scale are expected to occur about once every 20 years in south-west France and once every six years in central Spain, the World Weather Attribution group said on Friday.
“What we are seeing now in France and Spain is not simply bad luck, but a clear sign of the increasingly severe consequences of human-caused warming,” said Dr Clair Barnes of Imperial College London.
“We have repeatedly seen how climate change intensifies the hot, dry and combustible conditions that are highly conducive to wildfires,” Barnes said.
“What is striking in this case is that the season has only just begun, and with another heatwave on the horizon, the findings are deeply alarming.”
