Spain wildfires burn record territory this year: Monitor

MADRID: Deadly wildfires ravaging Spain have burnt the equivalent of nearly half a million football fields this year, setting a new record for the country, a European monitor said Monday.

The fires have so far burnt more than 343,000 hectares (848,000 acres), according to data from the European Forest Fire Information System (Effis), surpassing the record of 306,000 hectares for the same period in 2022.

Portugal set the European record of 563,000 hectares scorched in 2017, when 119 people were killed. The country has already seen 216,000 hectares burnt in 2025, according to Effis, which has been gathering data for two decades.

Spain's fires this year have been focused on the northwest regions of Galicia and Castile and Leon, and have claimed four lives.