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



'Retro Park' Revives 80s and 90s Gaming Nostalgia at the Esports World Cup 2025

The video game industry has undergone rapid evolution over the past decades. (SPA)
The video game industry has undergone rapid evolution over the past decades. (SPA)
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'Retro Park' Revives 80s and 90s Gaming Nostalgia at the Esports World Cup 2025

The video game industry has undergone rapid evolution over the past decades. (SPA)
The video game industry has undergone rapid evolution over the past decades. (SPA)

The video game industry has undergone rapid evolution over the past decades, with various devices and platforms shaping the features of successive generations, the Saudi Press Agency reported on Thursday.

In this context, the Retro Park pavilion drew large crowds at the Esports World Cup 2025, currently taking place at Boulevard Riyadh City. It offers an interactive journey through the world of classic video games, inspired by the 1980s and 1990s, continuing through the 2000s to the present day, starting with the 1972 "Odyssey," the world's first home gaming console, and culminating in today's virtual reality technologies.

In the 1970s, specifically in 1977, the Atari video game console gained prominence with its iconic game Pac-Man. In 1983, the Arab world saw the launch of its first Arabic-localized home gaming console, known as Sakhr, alongside the release of the Family game console, fondly remembered by a generation for the classic game Mario.

In the early 1990s, the Super Nintendo console emerged, accompanied by the release of Super Mario World in 1993. Arcade machines also became popular in gaming halls before many of their titles transitioned to home consoles.

A significant turning point occurred in 1996 with the launch of the PlayStation by Sony, which gained widespread popularity due to its hit game, Crash. The decade concluded with the release of the Sega Dreamcast video game console.

In the 2000s, home gaming advanced significantly with the release of the PlayStation 2 and 3, alongside popular games such as Ratchet & Clank and Black Ops. Moreover, Nintendo launched the highly successful Wii, while handheld consoles from Nintendo and PlayStation also gained traction. The emergence of YouTube in 2005 paved the way for "Let's Play" content and gaming-related media.

In the second decade of the millennium, video games continued to evolve with the rise of motion-based games such as Just Dance, while meme culture and reaction content spread among gamers and internet users, becoming part of their digital memory.

In 2020, virtual reality (VR) technology gained significant prominence through the use of VR headsets, elevating the gaming experience to unprecedented levels and becoming a key part of the industry's global future.

The Saudi scene is an active part of this evolution, with the Kingdom witnessing significant growth in the number of players and content creators, in line with the Saudi Vision 2030, which places strong emphasis on the gaming sector as part of digital transformation and youth empowerment.