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Deadly Fires Sweep Portugal and Northern Spain
MADRID — At least 35 people have been killed and dozens more injured by wildfires in Portugal and northern Spain, as strong winds from a hurricane fanned hundreds of blazes sweeping across densely forested territory.
The authorities in Portugal declared a state of emergency in affected areas over the weekend, when about 500 fires were reported in the central and northern regions, and they raised the death toll to 31. About 4,000 firefighters were working to extinguish at least 65 blazes Monday morning.
Across the border in Spain, fires reached the outskirts of the port city of Vigo, forcing the temporary closing of a car factory. Television news reports and videos shared on social media showed residents forming human chains to pass water buckets in order to help put out flames.
The Spanish authorities said that more than 90 fires were burning in the northern regions of Galicia and Asturias. Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, who is from Galicia, traveled on Monday to his home region, where the authorities confirmed that at least four people had died.
In a post on Twitter, Mr. Rajoy said he gone to the region in the name of the Spanish people to express his condolences for those who died and to offer support for those affected.
The area also saw some relief, however, as rain began to fall early Monday and was expected to intensify. “The rain has now been helping us,” Ángel Rodal, the mayor of Baiona, told the television channel Antena 3 early Monday, as flames neared his coastal town.
The fires had spread rapidly since Sunday, in part because of strong winds tied to Hurricane Ophelia in the Atlantic Ocean, Spanish meteorologists said. But investigators are looking at human causes.
Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the leader of Galicia, said on Monday that many of the fires had started as acts of arson.
“The only thing we desire is that these criminals pay for what they have done,” he told a news conference on Monday.
While touring Galicia on Monday, Mr. Rajoy also suggested that arson was behind the fires. “It’s impossible that this could have happened in normal conditions,” he said.
Even so, the fires are certain to revive the debate over whether the authorities have allocated sufficient resources to forestry management, as well as Portugal’s reliance on volunteer firefighters and its failure to punish landowners who leave forests abandoned.
The situation in Portugal is complicated by the fact that the state owns about 3 percent of the country’s forests and does not have a proper registry of forest landowners. Forest management has been further weakened by budget cuts during the recent financial crisis.
Two weeks ago, Galicia dismissed 436 forest rangers who had been hired on temporary contracts over the summer months. Asked to justify the decision, Mr. Feijóo had said at a news conference that the risk of fire along the Atlantic coast had “lowered significantly.”
Portugal’s forests have been burning repeatedly during an unusually dry and warm summer. In June, 64 people were killed near the town of Pedrógão Grande, many of them trapped in their cars as they tried to escape the flames. It was the country’s most deadly fire.
The effects of the fires could be seen as far as Britain. The dust from the blazes, combined with the remnants of Hurricane Ophelia, gave the sky a reddish hue that is normally seen only at sunrise or sunset, the Met office said.
Follow Raphael Minder on Twitter @RaphaelMinder.
Palko Karasz contributed reporting from London.
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