LISBON: More than 1,000 firefighters battled a wildfire in central Portugal on Sunday as officials warned that thousands of hectares were at risk amid soaring temperatures across the country.

       Around 7,000 hectares (17,000 acres) have burned near Castelo Branco, “but the potential risk from this fire is estimated at more than 20,000 hectares”, the commander of the firefighting operation, Jose Gulherme, told journalists in Proenca-a-Nova.

       “It’s a very extensive area with many isolated homes and villages,” he said, adding that the perimeter of the fire was already some 60 kilometres (40 miles).

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       Smoke and ash from the blaze, which erupted on Friday, had spread more than 130 kilometres east on Saturday to the shrine of Fatima, a revered Catholic pilgrimage site, as Pope Francis visited as part of his trip to Portugal for the World Youth Day festival.

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       A further 300 firefighters had also been deployed to battle a wildfire in Odemira, near the country’s southwest coast.

       A civil security chief, Tiago Bugio, said the flames were being beaten back on Sunday, with two fronts still active but a third, which had been heading toward the tourist hub of Algarve, now under control.

       But with temperatures forecast to reach 40 degrees Celsius in some regions, authorities said wildfire risks would remain “very high or maximum across the entire territory” at least for the coming days.

       In neighbouring Spain, a fire that has burned nearly 600 hectares in Catalonia near the border with France remained contained on Sunday despite renewed wind gusts along the Mediterranean region, and firefighters had also brought a blaze in the southern Andalusia region near Bonares under control.

       Published in Dawn, August 7th, 2023