Forest fires in Portugal and Spain burn thousands of hectares

Several forest fires in Spain and Portugal burned through thousands of hectares of forest over the weekend.
The most devastating of the forest fires, in western Portugal, had destroyed 6,200 hectares and injured six people as of Sunday morning, according to Portuguese civil defence authorities.
Several villages threatened by the flames had been evacuated while a curfew had been imposed by other villages in the area.
More than 1,100 emergency workers as well as 11 helicopters and firefighting aircraft are now battling the flames, which have been raging since Friday in the districts of Castelo Branco and Proença-a-Nova, according to official reports.
Civil defence spokesman Jody Rato told journalists that it will likely take several days to bring the fire under control. There are also several smaller forest fires burning in Portugal.
In Spain, officials said late on Saturday night that they had largely brought under control a forest fire near Portbou in the north-eastern region of Catalonia, not far from the border with France. The fire covered 573 hectares.
Another forest fire in the southern Spanish province of Huelva in Andalusia had been "stabilized" on Sunday, according to the regional emergency services.