The fire started in the Sierra de Gata mountain range on Thursday damaging approximately more than 16,000 acres, according to reports.
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Evacuees from three towns surrounding Sierra de Gata were taken to shelters. Some 300 firefighters, backed by water-bomber aircraft, were battling the wildfire. “It’s a tragedy for the village”, Acebo’s deputy mayor, Jose Javier Gonzalez Iglesia, told Spanish public television.
Round 1,000 residents have been evacuated early Saturday from the city Hoyos within the Extremadura area as flames have been fanned by robust in a single day winds, regional authorities president Guillermo Fernandez Vara stated.
Fernandes Vara said evidence pointed to numerous separate ignition points, indicating that “man’s hand must be behind these fires”.
A further fire close to the town of Lorca in southeast Spain has damaged 135 hectares of land and is being fought by 125 firemen and five helicopters.
The danger of wildfires was excessive throughout most of Spain on Friday as a effect of hovering temperatures, robust winds and parched vegetation, the agriculture ministry warned.
Wildfires have destroyed over 54,000 hectares of agricultural and forest land this year, more than in the previous two years combined, officials say.
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The average temperature in Spain last month was 26.5 degrees Celsius (79.7 Fahrenheit), the agency said Wednesday.
