Firefighters battle blazes in Portugal

FIREFIGHTERS returned to parched, sweltering forests yesterday to tackle huge wildfires that were racing out of control in Portugal for a second straight day.

Authorities said 22 major blazes were raging at daybreak.

Some 2,900 firefighters, supported by about 900 vehicles, were on duty, but most water-dropping aircraft stayed on the ground due to low visibility caused by massive clouds of smoke, the Civil Protection Service said.

Many fire crews got little rest during the night as they evacuated remote villages threatened by the flames.

Temperatures in some areas were forecast to reach 45 degrees celsius (113 Fahrenheit) and the heat wave was expected to continue through the weekend.

Internal Administration Minister Antonio Costa visited fire crews near Leiria, 90 miles north of Lisbon, around midnight and urged people to help the emergency services.

“We are facing great difficulties and they’ll probably continue for another few days,” Mr Costa said.

“It’s very important for everyone to do what they can to prevent fires breaking out, watch for outbreaks and help fight them.”

Early yesterday, police closed the country’s main north-south road for the second time in 24 hours due to thick smoke.

On Portugal’s hottest day of the year yesterday, almost 3,300 firefighters were deployed to tackle about 30 wildfires.

Portugal is enduring its worst drought on record and woodland is tinder-dry.

The Fire Prevention Agency placed all of Portugal on maximum alert.

An elderly man died near his forest home last month when a heat wave brought a first spate of wildfires.

Fires have charred more than 168,000 acres of woodland this year, according to the General-Directorate for Forests.

Meanwhile in France, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy called arsonists behind a series of forest fires “murderers” as he attended the funerals of two pilots whose fire-fighting aircraft crashed early this week.

“Those who started these fires are criminals, murderers, and murderers must be made to pay,” he said before the two flag-draped coffins.

Eighty pilots of Canadair water-bombing aircraft paid homage to their colleagues, pilot Ludovic Piasentin, 49, and co-pilot Jean-Louis de Benedict, 55, whose plane crashed on the French island of Corsica on Monday. Both men were posthumously decorated with Legion of Honour medals.