Rescue services were fighting several fires in Spain on Thursday, June 16, a task complicated by the unusual heat wave that the Iberian Peninsula has been facing for six days, with temperatures exceeding forty degrees.
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The most worrying fire broke out near Baldomar, in the province of Lérida (Catalonia, North-East), where the fire has already destroyed 500 hectares of forest, but has “the potentialto expand to 20,000 hectares, according to the Catalan regional government. At this point, no one has been evacuated in this area, but authorities have confined some residential areas as a precaution.
Temperatures above 40°C
In Lérida, temperatures of up to 41 degrees are expected on Thursday, according to the Spanish Meteorological Agency (Aemet), which also forecasts temperatures above 40 degrees in Badajoz (South-West) and Zaragoza (North-East).
In Catalonia, two other forest fires were active Thursday morning, in Solsonés (Lérida) and Tierra Alta (province of Tarragona), with in both cases nearly 300 hectares burned, according to the Catalan government. Another fire broke out in the Sierra de la Culebra, in Zamora (Castile and León, Center). In Navarre (North), firefighters managed to control two other forest fires overnight, the regional emergency services said Thursday morning.
Consequence of global warming
This heat wave, unusual at this stage of the year in Spain, has resulted since last weekend in an explosion of temperatures throughout the country, with peaks of up to 43 degrees. According to Aemet, it should last until Saturday. Spain, which this year experienced its hottest May since the beginning of the century, according to the meteorological agency, has already gone through four episodes of extreme temperatures in the last ten months.
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The multiplication of heat waves, particularly in Europe, is a direct consequence of global warming, explain the scientists, with greenhouse gas emissions increasing both the intensity, duration and frequency of these phenomena.
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