Fires Destroy Thousands of Hectares of Spain Forests

Wildfires advance in Almonaster la Real in Huelva, Spain, Thursday Aug. 27, 2020. (A.Perez, Europa Press via AP)

The wildfires that broke out in Huelva, southwest of Spain, have destroyed around 10,000 hectares of forests- an area equivalent to more than 14,000 football fields.

The local authorities said Monday that around 3,200 people fled the fire in the province, local media reported.

The residents of Almonaster la Real, a town of 1900 people, have been hard hit by the fires. The town is located in a mountainous area about 40 kilometers east of the Portuguese border and 100 kilometers northwest of Seville.

According to reports, the army assisted more than 500 firefighters to end the fires with the help of 24 helicopters and aircraft.

"They hope a weather change, with less wind and air, could enhance local efforts to extinguish fires. But the fires are still out of control," a spokesman for the fire department told Europa Press.

Over the weekend, a separate fire destroyed some 300 hectares of forest in the Murcia region in eastern Spain.

The latest official figures indicate that fires caused relatively little damage in Spain this year, before the Huelva fire broke out.

By mid-August, the fires had destroyed 31,000 hectares, less than half of the 72,000 hectares destroyed by fires in 2019.

The average area destroyed by fires over the past ten years until mid-August was about 63,000 hectares.