High winds could make fighting Spanish wildfires harder, officials say

MADRID, July 25 (Reuters) – Winds will increase in Spain on Saturday, with speeds of up to 60 km per hour (38 mph), making it harder to fight out-of-control forest fires west of Madrid, the Interior Ministry warned.

Two separate wildfires in the Madrid region merged into one large blaze on Friday, but so far they have not merged with another fire in Avila in the neighboring Castilla y Leon region.

The fires have so far forced more than 30,000 people to flee their homes in the Madrid region, with more than 20,000 trapped in their homes, the ministry said on Saturday.

The conditions of the night helped the firefighters.

“The change in weather conditions (less wind, higher humidity and lower temperature) has greatly benefited the fight against forest fires, which progress very slowly and decrease in intensity,” the central government in Madrid said in a statement on Saturday morning. he said.

Thick clouds of smoke were seen in the sky west of the capital.

More than 9,000 hectares of land were burned in forest fires in the Madrid region, authorities said.

(Reporting by Graham Keeley; Editing by Kevin Liffey)