Three people have died, including an elderly woman, and more than 1,000 people have been evacuated after a wildfire tore across the Portuguese island of Madeira.
The woman, who has not been named, died after her house in the capital of Funchal caught fire.
Funchal, which has a population of 111,000, is a big tourist destination.
Several buildings were destroyed in the fire include a five star hotel, according to reports, while two people have been seriously injured.
A 24-year-old man was arrested on Tuesday, accused of starting the fire deliberately in the mountains of São Roque, just outside Funchal.
Judicial police sources told local media that the suspect "has a criminal record as an arsonist".
Spanish authorities said they have moved more than 500 more residents from the path of the five-day-old forest fire, which has affected over 4,400 hectares on the volcanic island located off the northwest coast of Africa, the Spanish news agency Efe said late Monday. A 54-year-old forestry worker died on Thursday while helping to fight the wildfire.
About 350 firefighters, supported by four planes and eight helicopters dumping water, are battling the fire but strong winds and high temperatures are making work difficult, the authorities said.
The regional government for the island, part of the Canary Islands archipelago, says the evacuation of two neighborhoods in the town of Villa de Mazo took place Sunday morning shortly after midnight as the fire spread through the hilly terrain. This came only hours after authorities said some of the 2,500 residents previously moved to safety could now return to their homes.
More than 4,400 firefighters battled hundreds of forest blazes across Portugal on Monday, authorities said, as the annual summer wildfire season hit a peak
More than 4,400 firefighters battled hundreds of forest blazes of varying sizes across Portugal on Monday, authorities said, as the annual summer wildfire season hit a peak.
The National Civil Protection Authority said on its website that by late afternoon almost 1,500 vehicles and 32 water-dumping aircraft were deployed at 702 wildfires, some of which have been burning for days.
It classified eight wildfires in the north of the country as major blazes that were out of control.
The fires spread quickly through mostly pine and eucalyptus forests that are tinder-dry after weeks without significant rain. Daytime temperatures in recent days have exceeded 30 degrees Celsius (86 Fahrenheit) and in some northern cities exceeded 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) on Monday.
The National Civil Protection Authority classified eight wildfires in the north of the country as major blazes that were out of control
Firefighters try to prevent the Pilot Fire from burning over Highway 173 Sunday night, Aug. 7. (Stuart Palley/KPCC)
A wildfire in the San Bernardino National Forest east of Los Angeles grew to about 7 square miles overnight and prompted officials to issue evacuation orders in some communities.
The Pilot Fire, which started Sunday afternoon, was about 5 percent contained early Monday. It was burning in the San Bernardino Mountains between Lake Arrowhead and Silverwood Lake.
At least 400 firefighters were working to cut lines on the fire.
U.S. Forest Service spokeswoman Lyn Sieliet told KPCC the strategy is to keep the fire from pushing northeast toward homes.
"They're using multiple aircraft to try and get a line around the fire, get ahead of it to keep it from going into the homes in the Hesperia area," Sieliet said.
Fire crews in the Boise National Forest are now working on nine new lightning-caused fires, as lightning cells moved through the area Sunday afternoon.
Very little rain occurred with the lightning event. Most of the new fires are small (under 2 acres) and approximately 50 percent of these are staffed, according to a press release from the Boise National Forest.
These new start fires are being fought with a variety of crews, engines, helicopters and air tankers.
Four of the fires are in the Boiling Springs area, about 15 miles north of Garden Valley in Valley County. Another is about 1-mile north of Sage Hen Reservoir and the fourth is about 3 miles northeast of Silver Creek Hot Springs area. These are also in Valley County.
27 large wildfires are currently burning out of control in the West of the USA. Hot, dry temperatures often combined with winds have made firefighting conditions difficult, destroying homes and forcing evacuations. Here is a compilation of the largest and most dangerous as of August 4, 2016.
Wildfires in California
Authorities are considering potential penalties for whoever set an illegal campfire that ballooned into a massive wildfire near scenic Big Sur in California. The fire has charred almost 73 square miles and destroyed 57 homes. A bulldozer operator was killed on the fire lines.
Could a significant factor in the escalation of these events be that they are fueled from outgassing, then possibly 'sparked' by an increase in atmospheric electric discharge events, such as lightning strikes and other 'cosmic' ignition sources?
Calla Cofield Space.com Tue, 02 Aug 2016 13:54 UTC
The Soberanes fire, currently burning near Monterey, California, was imaged by a NASA satellite on Sunday afternoon, as the blaze continued to swallow up tens of thousands of acres of land.
The fire, which has been burning for a little more than three weeks, had destroyed over 33,000 acres on Saturday (July 30), according to the Los Angeles Times. But in just a few days, the engulfed area has expanded to include 43,400 acres (67.8 square miles or 175.6 square kilometers) according to the state wildfire management agency, Cal Fire.
The image of the fire, trailing white smoke out over the Pacific Ocean, was captured with the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard NASA's Aqua satellite at 4:35 p.m. EDT (20:35 GMT). The red lines on the image show actively burning areas detected by MODIS.
The resolution of the image is 820 feet (250 meters) per pixel, and the image shows an area about 3,730 miles (600 km) long and 260 miles (420 km) wide. A black line representing the California border with Nevada is imposed on the image.
Wildfires (marked in red) in the western United States, seen from space by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard NASA's Aqua satellite on July 31.
Wildfires were burning Monday in seven Western U.S. states, from California's famed Big Sur region to tribal towns and hamlets near Reno, Nevada. Evacuations were ordered in Montana, Nevada, Oregon and Wyoming and firefighters were trying to stop a Washington blaze from reaching a thickly forested security zone at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation.
Here's a look at some of the fires:
California
Higher humidity and lower temperatures on Monday helped firefighters battle a destructive fire that has scorched more than 63 square miles near the scenic Big Sur coast, while firefighters in Central California faced blistering heat as they worked to contain a blaze that burned rural homes and forced hundreds of evacuations near the small Fresno County town of Prather.
A layer of ocean air that arrived in the mountainous Big Sur region was credited for the better firefighting conditions in an area where a fire that started July 22 has destroyed 57 homes and 11 outbuildings and is threatening 2,000 more structures. A bulldozer operator working for the firefighting operation died in an accident last week.
The blaze near Prather damaged an undetermined number of 400 evacuated homes just outside the Sierra National Forest, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said.
That fire started Saturday and by Monday had grown to nearly 3 square miles with just 15 percent of it cut off by firefighters from burning further.
Several lightning-sparked wildfires grew in grasslands and brush in northern Nevada on Monday, where officials said about 800 firefighters were trying to contain a 78-square-mile fire near a tribal town and rural hamlets west of Pyramid Lake.
Another 300 firefighters were trying to prevent a nearly 8-square-mile wildfire from reaching a state highway in the remote and scenic Poodle Mountain Wilderness Study Area about 50 miles farther north.
In eastern Nevada, firefighters had about half of a 1.3-square-mile wildfire contained on public rangeland about 95 miles northeast of Las Vegas, Bureau of Land Management spokesman Chris Hanefeld said.
Near the largest fire, about 600 residents were allowed to return to the Pyramid Lake shoreline community of Sutcliffe after utilities were restored. They had been evacuated over the weekend, along with 200 people in beach areas. The lake remained closed to the public for boating, camping and recreation, said Scott Carey, Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribal business manager.
The fire destroyed six houses and mobile homes, two vehicles and several out-buildings at historic Hardscrabble Ranch, and the Tribal Council issued a disaster declaration late Saturday to obtain resources from state and federal agencies, Carey said.
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