Spain is battling a wave of wildfires that have claimed four lives this summer. In the north-west, in regions renowned for their lush landscapes and picturesque villages, farmers and residents are trying to save homes and land that firefighters cannot reach.
A record 3,400 square kilometres – about the size of Moldova – has been destroyed by wildfires in Spain this year, the European Forest Fire Information System said.
Thousands of firefighters, backed by soldiers and water-bombing aircraft, have been battling more than 20 major blazes across the west of the country this week.
The fires, now in their second week, are concentrated in Castile and Leon, Galicia and Extremadura. Thousands of people have been forced to flee.
In some isolated villages, residents are defending their homes themselves. Surrounded by thick vegetation and perched on hillsides, these hamlets have been hit especially hard.
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Raquel Fernández, who lives in Montederramo, Galicia, told RFI: "Every day, new fires appear. The fires are so big that they end up merging together. It's all mountains, and there aren't enough resources [for firefighters] to be everywhere. The people who are saving us here are the local farmers with their tractors and water tanks."
Across the region, farmers are trying to save the most isolated houses – including their own.
In Guimarei, south of Ourense, as the flames approach, Martín Pérez fills his water tank.
"My farm burned down two days ago, over there. A calf farm. And now I'm trying to save my house. Yesterday we saved my sister's farm, and we've been there for days. It's hell. It's absolute hell. I'm devastated, absolutely devastated. But we have to keep fighting, that's the way it is."
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Anger with authorities
In Mogainza, Eloi Fernandez, a livestock farmer, has been battling the flames for a week.
He says he is angry with the authorities for not allowing farmers to clear the forests, which he believes could have slowed the spread of the fires.
"They ban everything. They ban making new paths, controlled burning, cutting wood for heating in winter... Everything, everything is banned. They call it a 'nature network'. Nature network... what nature do we have left? How are they protecting it? It makes no sense, they don't know what they're doing."
Other residents have voiced their anger at what they regard as poor preparation and limited resources.
"No one’s shown up here, nobody," Patricia Vila told AFPTV in the village of Vilamartin de Valdeorras in Ourense. "Not a single damn helicopter, not one plane, has come to drop water and cool things down a bit."
France, Italy, Slovakia and the Netherlands have sent firefighting aircraft to help, but the size and severity of the fires and the intensity of the smoke are making "airborne action difficult," Spanish Defence Minister Margarita Robles told television channel TVE.
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Fernandez is worried for the future of these hamlets, which are already suffering from depopulation.
"It's all going to die out. We in the hamlets are doomed, they're going to be abandoned," he said. "There are only three or four young people left, and we're taking a real beating."
Despite the risks, locals continue to fight tirelessly against the fires, as the Spanish authorities announce that they will release aid for farmers who have lost everything.
(with newswires, and partially adapted from the this report n French.)
