The situation is clearly improving on Thursday July 21 on the front of the fires in Spain, where a large fire is about to be controlled in Aragon (North-East), but the tens of thousands of hectares burned across the countries are already making 2022 a historic year.
The evolution of the fire "
has been positive in recent hours
", with new starts having been immediately extinguished, the regional government said on Twitter.
This fire, which broke out on Monday, covers an area of 14,000 hectares and led to the evacuation of 1,700 people.
"
The return of the inhabitants to the evacuated villages is getting closer and closer, but we have to be careful
," said regional president Javier Lambán.
The section of the A2 motorway, linking Madrid to Barcelona, which had to be cut because of the flames, was reopened to traffic on Thursday morning, according to the Aragonese authorities.
70,000 hectares since January
Spain has been swept in recent days by a wave of devastating fires, favored by the heat wave which lasted from July 9 to 18 and which could be the most extreme ever recorded in the country, according to provisional data from the National Meteorological Agency (AEMET).
Since the beginning of the year, nearly 70,000 hectares have been reduced to ashes in the country, "
virtually double the average of the last ten years
" for the same period, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said.
According to the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS), which measures them differently from satellite observations, 2022 has already just become the worst year since the start of the statistical series in 2000, with 194,704 hectares charred by 319 fires.
That is more than all of 2012, the previous record year.
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The fire in the province of Zamora (Northwest), one of the worst in recent days and which resulted in the death of a firefighter and a shepherd on Sunday and Monday, was controlled and remained "
quiet and without flames
, ”said the Castile and Leon region.
After a short respite in temperatures on Tuesday and Wednesday, Spain should see the mercury rise again on Thursday: 41ºC are thus expected in Extremadura (South-West) and 40ºC in Andalusia (South), while a large part of the territory remains on alert, according to AEMET.