Overview

• About 25,000 hectares have burned across Galicia, Castilla y León, Extremadura and the Valencian interior, prompting the evacuation of roughly 10,000 people and allowing some to return to areas where fires have been contained.
• Major active fronts in Ourense, the Sierra de la Culebra, Zamora’s Puercas and Cáceres’s Jarilla remain hard to access as erratic winds and scattered lightning storms fuel flare-ups.
• Experts attribute the fires’ scale to this month’s extreme heatwave, prolonged drought, rural land abandonment and gaps in prevention funding.
• The Unidad Militar de Emergencias has been dispatched to Teresa de Cofrentes and other high-risk zones, and Spain has secured two Canadair tankers through the EU Civil Protection Mechanism.
• Authorities report at least four civilian deaths, multiple critical burn injuries, 25 arrests for suspected arson, and road closures on the A-66 and N-630 as flames threaten homes, agriculture and UNESCO sites like Las Médulas.