Spanish police accuse tractor driver of setting wildfires as fire spreads | Environmental Issues

The number of people forced to flee the wildfires in Spain and France has now passed 100,000.

Spanish police have arrested a man accused of starting wildfires with farm machinery, as fires raging across the country and in France continue to force the evacuation of thousands of people.

The arrest of the tractor driver came as the fire he was linked to forced thousands of people from their homes around the capital Madrid, as a wildfire emergency was declared for the first time in Spain.

The number of people forced to flee the wildfires in Spain and France has now passed 100,000.

Police say a second suspect is being investigated in a similar case. In the tinderbox, the authorities had announced that they were banning the use of farm machinery and other equipment.

The fire, which burned in central Spain, has combined two blazes west of Madrid into a single wave that has burned 30 kilometers (11.5sq miles) and which officials have called the worst in the region’s history.

Local authorities have now ordered around 40,000 people to evacuate areas west of the capital or stay indoors.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez wrote on X that his government had deployed “all the resources available” against what he called a “disturbance” spreading beyond Spain’s borders.

“The forest fire is at its peak and there are no firefighters who can’t handle it,” Carlos Novillo, the head of the emergency management of the Madrid government told reporters.

Another fire in the province of Avila, also in the central region of Castilla y Leon, has burned 90sq km (35sq miles) and displaced nearly 1,500 people.

France is also battling dangerous fires. One fire has broken out on the Cap Ferret Peninsula, burning about 125sq km (50sq miles) and forcing about 44,000 people to leave the Gironde department, some by boat.

A second fire in the Landes region has displaced another 23,000 people.

French authorities have called on the European Union to step up as fires continue to burn in two parts of the country’s south-west.

Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said France now has 32 wildfires, including more than 50,000 hectares (123,500 acres) that have burned since January – almost three times the number of last year.

The EU has sent four bombers to Spain and three to France, while other aid has been provided by Italy, Greece, Croatia, Portugal, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

The World Health Organization’s European office reported that the number of places affected by wildfires has increased by 57 percent in four years, with fires in Spain and Portugal doubling from last year.