The entrances to heat waves fight against forest fires in Spain, Portugal, Greece

Firefighters in Spain, Portugal and Greece fought the forest fires on Friday, an important religious holiday in the three countries, because dry and persistent dry conditions challenged the efforts to contain the flames.

Spain was fighting 14 major fires, according to Virginia Barcones, director general of emergency services. Temperatures were expected to climb over the weekend.

“Today will be a very difficult day again, with an extreme risk of new fires,” wrote Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez on X. wrote.

The National Weather Agency Aemet warned against the risk of extreme fire in most of the country, including where the largest flames were burning in the north and west. A heat wave, which has brought temperatures above 40 ° C over several days this month, is expected to last until Monday.

Fires in the Galicia region have forced the closure of several highways. The high -speed rail line connecting it to the Spanish capital, Madrid, has remained suspended.

Fires in Spain this year burned 158,000 hectares, according to the European Forest Forest Information System in the European Union. It is an area about as large as Metropolitan London.

Forest fires raged on Friday while many European countries celebrated a religious holiday devoted to the Virgin Mary, known in Catholic countries like Spain and Portugal as the feast of the hypothesis.

Thousands of firefighters who are fighting against fires in Portugal

In Portugal, nearly 4,000 firefighters fought against fires on Friday. Seven major fires were active. The authorities extended the alert until Sunday, as high temperatures should last throughout the weekend.

On Friday, the Portuguese government asked for help from the EU civil protection mechanism, a fire fighting force that European countries in need may appeal. A watch, Spain received two planes from Canadair Water Bombers after asking the EU’s help to tackle the incendiaries.

During last week, Greece, Bulgaria, Montenegro and Albania also asked for help from the EU fire fighting force to face forest fires. The force has already been activated as many times this year as the whole of last year’s fire season.

Friday, a forest fire in Greece burned out of control for a fourth day on the island of Chios, which caused several other night evacuations.

Two breathtaking planes and two helicopters operated in the north of the Eastern Aegean Island, where local authorities declared that a lull in strong winds helped the firefighters early on Friday.

Following a series of major fires in the west of Greece earlier this week, the fire service was on alert on Friday outside Athens and neighboring areas in the southern country where unfavorable weather conditions have raised the risk of fire.

Friday, the spiritual leader of Orthodox Christians in the world expressed his solidarity on Friday with the victims of forest fires in southern Europe during the prayers one day which is also important for Orthodox Christians and known as the Dormition of the Virgin Mary.

Scientists say that climate change exacerbates the frequency and intensity of heat and drought in certain parts of Europe, which makes the region more vulnerable to the impacts on health and forest fires.

The combustion of fossil fuels such as coal and gas releases bench gases which are the main engine of climate change.

Europe heats up twice as fast as the global average since the 1980s, according to the Copernicus Climate Change EU service.

The EU surveillance agency says 2024 was the hottest year ever recorded worldwide and in Europe, which experienced its second largest number of “thermal stress”.