Amid massive forest fires in central Spain, authorities declared a state of emergency overnight in the Madrid autonomous community and Avila province to tackle the blazes. <\/p>\n
Due to large forest fires raging in central Spain, authorities declared a state of emergency late Thursday night covering the autonomous community of Madrid\u2014including the city of Madrid and its surroundings\u2014as well as the adjacent province of Avila.<\/p>\n
Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska stated that the decision stems from an urgent need for government-subordinate services to take charge of fighting the fires in the central part of the country. A statement issued by the ministry specified that the head of the Military Emergency Unit (UME) has assumed operational command in the areas where the state of emergency is in effect.<\/p>\n
The situation is most difficult west of Madrid. The first fire broke out Wednesday in neighboring Castilla-La Mancha, in Toledo province, but spread to the capital region. Currently, the greatest threat comes from three active fires that are out of control in three towns located southeast of Madrid.<\/p>\n
According to Spanish television, the fire in San Martin de Valdeiglesias spread after a car caught fire. Two other major fires are active in the towns of Villa del Prado and Burgohondo. In total, 10,000 people have been evacuated within the autonomous community.<\/p>\n
Five regional roads are blocked in the vicinity, and a double rupture of the telecommunications network has left 40 towns in the region without mobile coverage, hindering the coordination of operations and contact among residents.<\/p>\n
Due to the proximity of the flames, high-speed train service on the Madrid-Barcelona line and commuter trains between Mejorada del Campo and Alcala de Henares were suspended for several hours on Thursday. Many residents of these towns commute by train to work in Madrid.<\/p>\n
Quoted by EFE, Transport Minister Oscar Puente stated that train services are frequently suspended this summer due to fires. He assessed that this is a reality we will unfortunately have to live with, as the number of fires in Spain has increased by 80 percent in recent years.<\/p>\n
In Avila province, the biggest challenge is the Burgohondo-Navaluenga fire, which spreads at a speed of three kilometers in just 40 minutes, according to Spanish television. From the region, 1.5 thousand people have been evacuated, including 130 from two campsites near the Valle de Iruelas nature reserve. A cloud of smoke is visible from the provincial capital, the historic city of Avila.<\/p>\n
Currently, firefighters are battling around a hundred fires nationwide. For a week, they have been trying to extinguish a fire in Guadalajara province in the Castilla-La Mancha region, which has already consumed over 32,000 hectares and forced residents of 34 towns to leave their homes. EFE reported that progress in extinguishing it is satisfactory, and some evacuees can return to their homes. The fire in Guadalajara is the second largest in Spain since record-keeping for these catastrophes began.<\/p>\n
In Andalusia, southern Spain, in Huelva province, 384 residents evacuated due to a fire received permission to return home. Services managed to control the situation in this area, though firefighting operations are still ongoing. Fires have consumed an area exceeding 100,000 hectares in Spain this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Amid massive forest fires in central Spain, authorities declared a state of emergency overnight in the Madrid autonomous community and Avila province to tackle the blazes. State of Emergency Declared in Central Spain Due to large forest fires raging in central Spain, authorities declared a state of emergency late Thursday night covering the autonomous community […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-expat-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16009"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16009\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}