Scorching temperatures and high winds fuelled huge wildfires Saturday on the French island of Corsica, forcing holidaymakers to flee, and in Portugal where firefighters have brought two major blazes under control. Almost 1,000 people were evacuated in Corsica overnight, mostly tourists staying at campsites, as 2,000 hectares (nearly 5,000 acres) of scrubland was destroyed, although no casualties were reported. The evacuees were put up in schools and other temporary shelters.
A man suspected of starting five fires in Bastia, a town with a population of 40,000 in northeast Corsica, was arrested late Friday, an official said. On Corsica at Cap Corse, the most northerly point of the Mediterranean island where the fire had spread overnight into Friday, the situation has been stabilised but the blaze remains rampant in the Sisco commune.
"It's hell," Christian Burchi, a 50-year-old Sisco resident said late Friday. "We tried to extinguish the flames with two buckets of water and a ridiculous hose. Everywhere is burning." But in Portugal firefighters managed to bring two of the major blazes under control in the centre of the country by Saturday afternoon, the civil protection authority announced, while warning that the heatwave could reignite the fires.
Firefighters have stopped the spreading of the flames from the forest fire that raged in the region of Abrantes since Wednesday, authorities said. But more than 500 firefigters, nearly 200 vehicles and three water-bombing helicopters remain on stand-by should the fires flare up again, they added.