NATIONAL EMERGENCY
Spain and Portugal battle deadly Ophelia-fanned fires while Britain and Ireland brace for the storm
Madrid/Dublin — While Spain and Portugal battled deadly wildfires fanned by Hurricane Ophelia, Britain and Ireland braced for the storm — a rare occurrence in the north Atlantic. Three people have died in Portugal, which has been hit by a record number of forest fires, and three more have died in Spain, where blazes sparked by arsonists have been fanned by strong winds from Ophelia. In total, about 440 fires were burning across Portugal on Sunday, which was “the worst day since the beginning of the year”, according to a spokeswoman for the national civil protection agency, Patricia Gaspar. In addition to the three dead, about 25 people had been injured, she said, with thousands of firefighters deployed and three motorways, including one linking Lisbon and Porto, closed. In June this year Portugal suffered its worst fire on record, near Pedrogao Grande in the centre of the country, which killed 64 people and injured 250. The recent fires had been caused by “higher than average temper...
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