Spanish firefighters battle new blaze front as 15,000 evacuated
A new wildfire front near Valencia has forced the evacuation of around 15,000 people, as Spain battles multiple blazes fuelled by extreme heat, dry conditions and strong winds.
Spanish firefighters on Sunday (26 July) battled a new front of fires near the coastal city of Valencia, where at least 15,000 people were evacuated.
Spain has already evacuated tens of thousands of people from villages west of the capital Madrid where extremely dry conditions have been worsened by heatwaves and strong winds.
In the Valencia region, on Spain's eastern coast, authorities said they were struggling to contain fires.
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"The fire is beyond our capacity to extinguish; it has a perimeter of about 21 kilometers (13 miles). It is still difficult to determine the number of hectares burned," Juanfran Perez Llorca, Valencia regional president told reporters late Saturday.
"We have evacuated around 15,000 people."
Spanish authorities also ordered new evacuations Saturday around Toledo, southwest of Madrid, describing the situation as complex with wind gusts pushing the blaze southward.
Fires in southwest France have forced 250,000 people to flee homes and campsites -- one of the country's biggest-ever peacetime evacuations.
Around 60,000 have already been evacuated from around Madrid, where Portugese, Italian and other firefighting planes are helping Spanish teams on the ground.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has said firefighters were working to save lives. One person has been reported killed by a seperate fire in the east of Spain.
