A wildfire that broke out near Ervões on 12 August has burned around 15,000 hectares across Valpaços, Mirandela and Vinhais, destroying vineyards and olive groves and forcing evacuations. Mayor Jorge Mata Pires has asked the government to declare a state of calamity.
A returning heatwave has pushed around seventy interior councils across northern and central Portugal into the highest wildfire-danger band, with temperatures forecast up to 42C in Evora. Some eclipse-viewing events were cancelled over the fire risk.
The whole of mainland Portugal has entered meteorological drought after the driest July so far this century, IPMA data show, with rainfall under 8% of normal, a heat wave among the fiercest since 1981 and 44.3C recorded at Mora. Here is what it means as the fire season peaks.
Every northern and central district plus Faro sits at maximum fire risk on Monday, with IPMA yellow warnings almost nationwide through Tuesday evening. Highs of 40°C are forecast for Santarém and Évora, and the elevated danger is expected to last all week.
Firefighters have brought the summer's biggest blaze under control after it burned more than 16,000 hectares across 14 municipalities around Valpaços, damaging around 20 homes. But a relentless heatwave keeps interior and southern Portugal under a state of alert as the peak fire month begins.
IPMA has placed every mainland district except Faro under a yellow warning from Monday morning to Tuesday evening, with the Douro, Tejo and Guadiana valleys forecast to pass 40°C and tropical nights in the eastern Algarve. Almost the entire mainland faces maximum or very high fire danger.
With almost the entire mainland at very high or maximum fire risk and temperatures above 40C, Portugal activated the EU Civil Protection Mechanism on Friday and asked Spain and Morocco for Canadair water-bombers. Some 46 rural fires are burning; the Vouzela blaze alone has scorched over 7,000 hectar
