Spain and Portugal are facing a wave of wildfires of gigantic proportions, which have already claimed the lives of several firefighters. One of them died on Sunday 17 August while on duty in the north of the Lusitanian nation, and two other serious injuries were reported in the area, according to Portuguese president Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa. This is the second fatality in the space of just a few days, following the death of a former mayor and volunteer firefighter, who died on Friday in Guarda, in the mountainous region of Beira Alta.

Thousands of firefighters battling the blazes in Portugal

On Monday morning, more than two thousand firefighters were still working to contain the fires. A single mega-blaze in Arganil, in the centre of the country, is absorbing around a thousand firefighters alone. But the situation is so severe that it has forced the Lisbon government to request the activation of the European mutual assistance mechanism for wildfires: two Swedish firefighting aircraft are expected to arrive during the day. Morocco had already dispatched several vehicles last week, interior minister Maria Lucia Amaral announced.

2025 has so far been catastrophic in Portugal, with 185,000 hectares already destroyed by fire, according to (still provisional) data published by the Forestry Institute — a figure already far exceeding last year's total, when it stopped at "just" 136,000 hectares.

More than 70,000 hectares burned in Spain in one week

Spain has also had to call on the European Union's assistance mechanism to deal with the most critical situations. Smoke from the fires has engulfed the western half of France, reaching even the northernmost regions. One firefighter died in the region of Castilla y León. Three other firefighters had died in the preceding days.

Nahel Belgherze ✓ @WxNB_

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Just dreadful satellite imagery of the rapidly escalating wildfire outbreak across parts of northern Portugal and western Spain.

Look at the size of that smoke plume!

♥ 959💬 27 15 ago 2025 · Apri su X →

In the Iberian nation, more than 70,000 hectares were burned last week, bringing the year-to-date total to over 157,000. But many fires have yet to be brought under control, and the figures are therefore set to rise further. For this reason, prime minister Pedro Sánchez has underscored the need for "a deeper reflection" and has proposed "a national pact in the face of the climate emergency".

Pedro Sánchez: "Faced with the climate crisis, a deeper reflection is needed"

"Having fires of this magnitude, or extreme phenomena like the Dana (the torrential rainfall that struck the city of Valencia in October 2024, causing around a hundred deaths and damage running into billions of euros, ed.) shows that the climate crisis is accelerating, it is worsening, above all on the Iberian Peninsula," observed the head of the Madrid government. According to whom "the fires will be extinguished, the affected areas will be rebuilt, but we must begin a fundamental reflection, equip ourselves with a strategy". And this requires the involvement of "parliamentary groups, civil society as a whole, science, businesses, trade unions. In other words, the entire nation".

The perfect conditions for mega-wildfires to break out have indeed been created by waves of extreme heat and drought: phenomena that, as demonstrated by a great many scientific studies, are and will increasingly be aggravated and made more frequent by climate change, itself fuelled by the use of fossil fuels. In the meantime, Spain has been forced to mobilise more than 13,600 people, including firefighters and military personnel. Thousands of people have also been evacuated.