The World Today
MADRID, 16 (EUROPA PRESS)
The forest fires ravaging Portugal have burned some 64,000 hectares of forest in just two days, according to a provisional count showing that, so far this year, the country has lost 17 times more land to fires than in the same period in 2024.
The Institute for Nature and Forest Conservation (ICNF) estimated that around 75,000 hectares had burned between January 1 and August 14, but the figure has risen to over 139,000 today, reports Lusa news agency.
In two days, 46 percent of the area burned since the beginning of the year has burned, and the situation is not improving in the center and north of the country, where more than 100 municipalities remain at maximum risk.
One of the municipalities under alert is Guarda, where hundreds of personnel continue to fight a blaze that claimed the first fatality of the current emergency on Friday: a former local leader who was helping to extinguish the blaze on the ground.
