Portugal, hit by a third heatwave after weeks of wildfires, said Monday that it hoped cooler temperatures and increased air humidity in the coming days would help tame the blazes.

A current national alert would not be prolonged beyond midnight on Tuesday, "thanks to a significant improvement" in the meteorological conditions, said Interior Minister Jose Luis Carneiro following a meeting with the civil protection services.

According to the forecasts, temperatures are expected to fall and air humidity increase from Wednesday, "to such an extent that we believe it's possible to review the restrictions, Carneiro said.

Under the national alert announced on Sunday, authorities had restricted access to forests and banned fireworks displays, and also stepped up the state of readiness of the emergency services.

Having only just brought under control a fire that destroyed more than 28,000 hectares (69,000 acres) in the Serra da Estrela national park, civil protection authorities said on Monday that firefighters were tackling another blaze in the central northern Vila Real region.

"According to provisional estimates, this fire has burnt 4,500 hectares," emergency and civil protection services head Andre Fernandes said of the blaze in a hard-to-access mountainous area.

Two Canadair water bomber planes sent by Greece under the terms of an EU-wide civil protection support mechanism were aiding firefighters' efforts.

The government issued the alert Sunday after identifying a heightened risk of rural fires as temperatures look set to hit 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) Monday and Tuesday amid an ongoing severe drought.

The latest heatwave comes with Portugal having experienced its hottest July in almost a century.

Since January, the country's Institute for Nature Conservation and Forests says more than 94,000 hectares of land have been laid waste to in Portugal's worst forest fires since 2017, when a series of blazes cost dozens of lives.

Portugal last Wednesday finally extinguished a fire which had burnt more than 25,000 hectares of land in the UNESCO-listed central mountainous area of Serra da Estrela, home to diverse wildlife species including wildcats and lizards.

Minister of the Presidency Marina Vieira da Silva said after meeting mayors of affected municipalities that Lisbon was declaring "a state of natural disaster" to allow the release of rapid aid.

The government is also drawing up a "revitalisation plan" for the Serra da Estrela park.

The consensus among scientists is that climate change has increased the probability of heatwaves, leading to drought and more forest fires.

Spain to declare fire-hit regions disaster zones
Madrid (AFP) Aug 22, 2022 - Spain's government said Monday it would classify regions struck by big wildfires this year as disaster zones, a move that will trigger emergency subsidies and other financial support measures.

So far Spain has suffered nearly 400 wildfires, following punishing heatwaves and long dry spells, which have devastated more than 287,000 hectares of land, according to the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS).

That is more than three times the total area destroyed in 2021, according to the EFFIS database.

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said his cabinet would on Tuesday approve classifying as a disaster zone "all territories that have been devastated by the great fires that we have endured throughout this year".

He was speaking during a visit to Bejis in the eastern Valencia region, where a wind-fanned blaze ravaged vast swathes of land over the past week, with around 2,200 people evacuated.

Firefighters managed to stabilise the blaze on Sunday, allowing local officials to lift all remaining evacuation orders.

Standing in front of charred trees, Sanchez said he regretted the "psychological blow" suffered by those who had lost their belongings to the flames, as well as the environmental damage.

"Unfortunately, science tells us that the coming summers are going to be even hotter. We are facing a climate emergency," he added.

Parts of Spain are the driest they have been in a thousand years due to an atmospheric high-pressure system driven by climate change, according to a study published last month in the journal, Nature Geoscience.

Experts say climate change driven by human activity is boosting the intensity and frequency of extreme weather events, such as heatwaves, droughts and wildfires.

Death toll from Algeria wildfires rises to over 40
Algiers (AFP) Aug 22, 2022 - The death toll has climbed to at least 43 from wildfires that have raged for days in northern Algeria, with numbers expected to rise further, the gendarmerie said Monday.

Thirteen people have been arrested over suspicion of involvement in starting the fires, it added.

"The latest toll of victims from the fires increased to 43," from 38 recorded two days earlier, the gendarmerie command said on state radio.

Fires had swept through 14 wilayas, or administrative councils, in the north of the country, with most concentrated in the northeastern El Tarf region near the border with Tunisia.

The gendarmerie, which operates under the defence ministry, added that they are still working on identifying the bodies of the victims.

The death toll is expected to increase, it said, despite earlier reports that the fires had mostly been contained.

Civil protection services said some 31 fires were put out in various parts of the North African country between Saturday and Sunday.

More than 1,000 families were evacuated from various districts over the past few days, the civil defence's Colonel Boualem Boughlef said on Saturday.

The fires, which have become a yearly fixture due to climate change, have devastated thousands of hectares (acres) of woodland in the mostly-desert country.

Fires last year killed at least 90 people and seared 100,000 hectares (247,000 acres) of forest and farmland in the north.

Related Links
Forest and Wild Fires - News, Science and Technology

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Climate change driving unprecedented forest fire loss
Paris (AFP) Aug 17, 2022
Forest fires supercharged by climate change are burning twice as much global tree cover as 20 years ago, according to a data Wednesday showing the equivalent of 16 football pitches are now lost every minute. The research showed in unprecedented detail how wildfires have progressed over the past two decades, with the blazes claiming an estimated three more million hectares each year - an area the size of Belgium - compared with 2001. The study showed that the majority of tree cover loss is occu ... read more