Wildfires have ripped through another 30,000 hectares (74,000 acres) of land in western Spain in less than 24 hours, satellite data showed on Tuesday, pushing the country’s scorched total this year to 373,000 hectares (922,000 acres) — its worst fire season since records began in 2006.

The devastation has surpassed 2022’s toll of 306,000 hectares, with the bulk of destruction coming from massive blazes that have burned for more than a week in the northwestern provinces of Zamora and Leon, Galicia’s Ourense province, and Caceres in the Extremadura region.

Thousands evacuated

Thousands of residents have been evacuated from dozens of villages, while major roads remain closed and rail links between Madrid and Galicia are suspended. Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez was expected to visit the worst-hit areas of Zamora and Caceres on Tuesday.

Officials warned the fires remain far from extinguished, but the end of a 16-day heatwave has brought relief. Maximum temperatures have fallen by 10–12°C, and humidity has risen, creating more favourable conditions for firefighters, said Nicanor Sen, the central government’s representative in Castile and Leon.

“These changes are facilitating and improving the conditions to gain control of the fires,” he told public broadcaster TVE.

One firefighter killed, two injured in Portugal

Across the border in Portugal, the fire crisis has also taken a deadly toll. President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa said a firefighter died on Sunday in a traffic accident that left two colleagues seriously injured, while a former mayor in the eastern town of Guarda was killed Friday while trying to tackle a blaze.

Portugal has deployed some 2,000 firefighters across its north and centre, with half concentrated around the hard-hit town of Arbanil.

So far this year, 216,000 hectares of land have been destroyed by wildfires there.