Forest blaze kills 14 firefighters

At least 14 firefighters died while trying to control a forest blaze that destroyed about 12,000 acres of woodland and forced hundreds of people to evacuate their villages in drought-stricken Spain.

The 14 went out in two groups to try to bring the fire under control in the central province of Guadalajara, an Interior Ministry spokesman said. Police fear at least one more person may have died.

An unidentified woman in the affected town of Luzon told Spanish National Television that one of the firefighters’ two lorries was found burned out.

The fire began on Saturday afternoon in the Cueva de los Casares natural park. It was still raging out of control last night. Police said sparks from a barbecue that had not been fully extinguished had caused the fire.

The blaze had so far charred an estimated 12,000 acres of pine woodland. It was raging on two fronts, aided by blustery winds and summer temperatures of up to 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit).

Spain is suffering its worst drought since records began in the late 1940s.

Some 400 residents from four villages in the area of the fire were evacuated, although many returned to their homes yesterday.

Elsewhere in Spain, six people suffered light burns and more than 2,500 acres of woodland were destroyed in the north-western province of Zamora on Saturday. The fire was still burning yesterday.

In the north-eastern province of Zaragoza, several hundred people were evacuated from a residential area and a camp site overnight after fire broke out in the Monasterio de Piedra parkland.

Police have arrested a 63-year-old man believed to have started a fire on land close to a petrochemical plant outside the south-central town of Puertollano on Saturday.

Thousands of acres of wood and scrubland are destroyed each year in summer fires in Spain and Portugal.