Forest fires advance four times slower since end of heatwave in Spain

The fires that have been ravaging large parts of Spain in the past couple of weeks are progressing four times slower thanks to the respite that the heatwave is giving. However, the threat is still alive, as all the emergency services repeat, and there are still 21 large fires that remain active, with flames raging in Orense, Cáceres, León and Zamora.

It will be several days before the avalanche of fires is considered to be under control, but the end of the heatwave is slowing down the rate of progress of most of the fires and has allowed some of them to be contained and brought under control. The Copernicus data clearly corroborate this. Between Monday and Tuesday, coinciding with the end of the heatwave, 38,190 hectares of woodland and forest were burnt in Spain in just 24 hours. Between Tuesday and Wednesday, in the same period of time, some 10,135 hectares were burnt. The fire advanced four times slower.

This was confirmed by the general improvement in firefighting that was detected on Wednesday in the three main focuses of the wave of fires ravaging the north-west of Spain. Between Saturday and Tuesday, the flames in Orense spread at a rate of 10,000 hectares a day; from Tuesday to Wednesday, the fronts barely moved and, for the first time in weeks, not a single village in the province was evacuated. In Castilla y León, where the president of the regional government confirmed "the good development", the number of villages confined to the mountains fell from 60 to 43 in 24 hours, with 1,752 residents returning to their homes. It was mainly thanks to the fact that, after 12 days out of control, the Yeres fire, which burnt Las Médulas World Heritage site, was brought down to the phase of emergency that comes right before a fire is classified as being under control. In Extremadura - the third region of major focus - only the Jarilla fire is left raging. Not a single village has been evacuated or confined and all available resources have been concentrated on stopping it: 26 aerial resources and 500 professionals.

There are at least two other signs of improvement. The first is that the containment of the fires in Orense has allowed the high-speed AVE train line between Madrid and Galicia, which had been suspended for a week since last Thursday, to be re-established. The service was restored in the afternoon and state railway operator Renfe chartered three additional trains to offer seats to many of the hundreds of passengers who had to cancel their tickets. The second reference of improvement is that the regions only requested the presence of emergency military units (Ume) in eight fires on Wednesday, when they had requested them in 11 and in more than 12 on Tuesday and Monday, respectively.

State meteorological agency Aemet pointed to Wednesday as the first day when the weather would assist firefighting efforts rather than challenge them. While the temperatures dropped to figures below the average for August, humidity increased and winds slowed down. However, it seems that the longed-for rain will not reach the whole of the burning north-west before Sunday.

General director of civil protection Virginia Barcones said that they will not lower their guard, despite the more favourable progress of the fires at the moment, because the situation remains "complex", with 21 large fires still at level 2 of emergency.

The forest firefighting teams in Orense acknowledged that it was almost the first day in two weeks that they were extinguishing and not containing the flames. Even so, they still had the Larouco and three other fires out of control on Wednesday. By Wednesday night, there were 20,000 hectares registered as devastated by the former and 10,000 hectares burned by the other three outbreaks. Together with the almost 500 fires that have emerged in the province since the beginning of this crisis, they have burned 10% of the province.

The strong and shifting winds put the Jerte valley in Cáceres on alert again on Tuesday, where two fronts of the Jarilla fire rekindled. The danger on the Salamanca side and even more in the Extremadura area forced the inhabitants of La Garganta to pack their suitcases.

The overall progress of the eight large fires in Castilla y León was good except in two cases. Once again, the wind reactivated the Barniedo fire and forced the evacuation of Cardaño de Arriba (Palencia). The same happened with the Porto fire, which returned to lake Sanabria, where three more villages were evacuated, bringing the total number of villages to a dozen.