Spain, Portugal, and Greece battle wildfires as heat wave is expected to
last for days
[August 16, 2025]
By SUMAN NAISHADHAM
MADRID (AP) — Firefighters in Spain, Portugal and Greece battled ongoing
wildfires Friday, an important religious holiday in all three countries,
as persistent hot, dry conditions challenged efforts to contain the
blazes.
Spain was fighting 14 major fires, according to Virginia Barcones,
general director of emergency services. Temperatures were expected to
climb over the weekend.
“Today will once again be a very tough day, with an extreme risk of new
fires,” Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez wrote on X.
The national weather agency AEMET warned of extreme fire risk in most of
the country, including where the largest blazes were burning in the
north and west. A heat wave which brought temperatures exceeding 40
degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) on several days this month was expected
to last through Monday.
Fires in the Galicia region forced the closure of several highways. The
high speed rail line connecting it to Spain's capital, Madrid, remained
suspended.
The fires in Spain this year have burned 158,000 hectares or 610 square
miles, according to the European Union’s European Forest Fire
Information System. That is an area roughly as big as metropolitan
London.
The wildfires raged on Friday as many European countries celebrated a
religious holiday devoted to the Virgin Mary, known in Catholic
countries like Spain and Portugal as the Feast of the Assumption.
In Portugal, nearly 4,000 firefighters were battling fires on Friday.
Seven major fires were active. Authorities extended the state of alert
until Sunday as high temperatures were expected to last through the
weekend.
The Portuguese government on Friday requested assistance from the EU’s
civil protection mechanism, a firefighting force that European countries
in need can call upon. A day before, Spain received two Canadair water
bomber aircraft after requesting EU help to tackle blazes for the first
time ever.
In the past week, Greece, Bulgaria, Montenegro and Albania have also
requested help from the EU’s firefighting force to deal with forest
fires. The force has already been activated as many times this year as
all of last year's fire season.
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This recent photo taken from a French Canadair water bomber and
provided Friday, Aug. 15, 2025 by the Securite Civile shows wildfire
in Spain. (Securite Civile via AP)
On Friday, a wildfire in Greece burned out of control for a fourth
day on the island of Chios, prompting several more overnight
evacuations.
Two water-dropping planes and two helicopters were operating in the
north of the island in the eastern Aegean Sea, where local
authorities said a lull in high winds was helping firefighters early
Friday.
Following a series of large fires in western Greece earlier this
week, the fire service was on alert Friday outside Athens and nearby
areas in the south of the country where adverse weather conditions
elevated the fire risk.
The spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians Ecumenical
Patriarch Bartholomew expressed solidarity on Friday with the
victims of wildfires in southern Europe during prayers on a day that
is also important for Orthodox Christians and known as the Dormition
of the Virgin Mary.
Scientists say that climate change is exacerbating the frequency and
intensity of heat and dryness in parts of Europe, making the region
more vulnerable to health impacts and wildfires.
The burning of fossil fuels like coal, gas and coal releases
heat-trapping gasses that are the primary driver of climate change.
Europe has been warming twice as fast as the global average since
the 1980s, according to the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.
The EU monitoring agency says that 2024 was the hottest year on
record both globally and in Europe, which experienced its
second-highest number of ‘heat stress’ days.
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AP writer Derek Gatopoulos contributed from Athens.
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