Hot, dry summer weather and treacherous winds have combined to make life hard for firefighters battling huge blazes in France, Spain and Portugal.
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A French fireman walks in the road as smoke fills the sky and blocks the sun as fires burn north of Marseille, France, August 10, 2016.
Debris litters the remains of a burnt building in Funchal, the capital of Portugal’s Madeira island Wednesday, Aug. 10 2016.
This photo provided by the Bataillon des Pompiers de Marseille (BMPM) shows firefighters trying to put out a fire near Marseille, southern France, Wednesday night August 10, 2016.
A firefighting helicopter flies above a forest fire near Mortagua, northern Portugal.
1500 firefighters are battling wildfires north of Marseille, which have forced more than 1000 people to flee their homes.
Portugal has also been severly affected by wildfires, which have left 4 people dead and many injured in the country. “We will find those who started them”, he said, but did not elaborate.
Police arrested a man Wednesday near the town of Vitrolles on suspicion of starting one of the fires deliberately.
The fire is burning its way towards Marseilles.
Meanwhile, three people have died in raging forest fires on Portugal’s holiday island of Madeira where flames damaged homes and a hotel and forced around 1,000 people to flee. He said two other people were seriously hurt and one person is missing.
The fires have already destroyed some homes in the town of Vitrolles, 25km north of Marseille. More than 1000 had spent the night in gymnasiums.
The potentially most sensitive fire ravaged an area around Fos-Sur-Mer, which includes a vast industrial zone about 25 miles northwest of Marseille, but the prefecture of the Bouches-du-Rhone region said late Wednesday it was no longer gaining ground.
Officials said more than 1,800 firefighters and suppression equipment are fighting the pockets of flames caused by the forest fire.
“Anyway, if you go and walk in the ash behind me, you may walk on embers. And those embers, with the wind going stronger. may spark the fire again, cross the crest and put the fire in the pinewood behind you”.
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The Marseille airport rerouted incoming flights to make way for firefighting aircraft, while officials in Marseille, France’s second-largest city, were bracing for flames that risked lapping at its doors, and the airport warned flights risk delays or cancellations Thursday.
