Wildfires hit Portugal
2009-08-31 19:06
-
Fire
Beauty is a weapon - and Fire is going to use it.
Now R112.95
buy now
Lisbon - Firefighters assisted by water-bombing helicopters and planes managed to bring a wildfire in northern Portugal under control Monday after battling it since Saturday night, rescuers said.
Nearly 200 firefighters and 57 vehicles, two helicopters and four water-bombers - two of them from Spain - quelled the blaze, which had initially been brought under control on Saturday afternoon then flared up again.
The fire at Sabugal in the Guarda region was one of three major wildfires still burning out of 15 that broke out over the weekend. The other two were in the same region and near Viseu, further west.
Overall, officials counted 444 small and larger blazes on Sunday with more than 7 000 firefighters involved to douse the flames.
With temperatures still high on Monday, weather services said fire hazards were extreme in five northern and central regions.
Up to August 15, nearly 24 000ha of forests and scrubland had gone up in flames since the start of the year, 7 000ha more than in all of last year.