Spain sends more soldiers to fight wildfire

The Spanish government has committed another 500 soldiers to its battle against destructive, drought-fed wildfires.

They will join the 1,400 troops already on the ground fighting blazes that have flared amid scorching conditions across much of southern Europe.

The European Union's European Forest Fire Information System says Spain has lost 158,000 hectares to wildfires so far this year, which is an area the size of metropolitan London.

The new deployment of firefighting soldiers will help douse the 20 or so active large-scale wildfires in Spain that have caused the loss of homes and businesses, the closure of roads and railway lines, and, during the past week alone, the loss of three lives.

Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Sunday the additional soldiers will help, but that there will be "some challenging days ahead and, unfortunately, the weather is not on our side". He made the comment after the country was hit with a prolonged dry spell, and temperatures that have hovered close to 45 C, according to the State Meteorological Agency.

Alfonso Rueda, head of the regional government in Spain's hardest-hit Galicia autonomous community, said firefighters are still grappling with 12 major blazes there.

"Homes are still under threat, so we have lockdowns in place and are carrying out evacuations," AP quoted him as saying.

Wildfires have hit Spain harder this year than any other European nation, but the situation has also been severe in neighboring Portugal, where nearly 4,000 firefighters have been battling eight major wildfires in central and northern parts of the country.

Wildfires have also been ripping through parts of Albania, Bulgaria, France, Greece and Montenegro, which have all called on the EU for help.

And wildfires have killed 19 people in Turkiye in recent weeks, largely in the country's northwest.

Omer Toraman, governor of Turkiye's Canakkale Province, said on the weekend that six villages there have been evacuated as a precaution.

While wildfires have ravaged Europe in the past, climate activists have pointed to the observation of the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service that the continent's average temperatures have been rising at twice the global average since the 1980s, as proof that Europe is becoming increasingly vulnerable to wildfires.

The EU, which says the wildfire situation is the worst for two decades, has said around 6,290 square kilometers of land within its borders have burned so far this year.