MADRID: About 700 firefighters were battling the first major forest fire of the year in Spain on Saturday March 25, which was out of control 48 hours after it began, forcing 1,500 people to flee.
In an update on Twitter, the regional emergency services said that the fire at Villanueva de Viver, about 90 km north of Valencia, was a highly complex blaze. It has affected 3,900 hectares and has a 35 kilometre perimeter, indicating the number of people forced out of their homes on Friday, about 1,500, had not changed.
They said the work to put it out was very important and that they had deployed 20 aerial units to help fight the fire.
Clearly, the fire has not stabilised because it is still burning with great ferocity given the weather conditions are almost like summer, Ximo Puig, leader of the Valencia region, told Spain's RTVE public television.
The fire started just after midday on Thursday.
The blaze was more typical of summer than late March, according to firefighters.
Conditions were perfect for such a blaze, Manolo Nicolas of Castellon firefighters told the public on Friday that vegetation was dried out due to a lack of moisture in the atmosphere and large amounts of combustible biomass in the forests.