Firefighters waged an uphill battle against forest fires in Spain and Portugal at the weekend, tackling new blazes after bringing dozens of others under control, officials said Sunday.
Thousands of hectares of forest in Spain's northwestern region of Galicia went up in smoke, and a number of blazes were still raging on Sunday, a regional government spokeswoman said.
Twenty-six forest fires were brought under control but another 22 were still active, the spokeswoman said, adding that at least 27 of the blazes had been started intentionally.
Dozens of people were evacuated from the village of Muros, just west of La Coruna, and the area was on high alert as three fires raged there.
The main highway between southern France and Spain, the A9, was closed for several hours on Sunday evening because of fears a blaze on the Spanish side of the border could spread, French authorities said.
In northern and central Portugal, hundreds of firefighters were battling 26 wildfires, 19 burning out of control, emergency services said.
In Santarem alone, north of the capital Lisbon, where temperatures reached 42 degrees Celsius (108 Fahrenheit), 115 fire fighters were trying to control three separate outbreaks, backed by 43 vehicles and a water-dropping helicopter.
Portugal has been on high alert for forest fires since Wednesday, and Saturday was the worst day of the year, authorities said.
The last four summers have seen fires devour some 870,000 hectares (2.1 million acres) of forest land in Portugal.
Portugal's government has put exceptional measures in place this year in the face of the threat from wildfires, which have ravaged hundreds of thousands of hectares over recent summers.
In Spain, a fire in Cercedo, north of Santiago de Compostela, on Friday killed two people trapped in their car and destroyed 3,000 hectares of countryside.
