Firefighters in Portugal, Spain, France, Greece and Morocco are battling forest fires raging across tens of thousands of hectares as this week’s heatwave continues to bring extreme temperatures and cause hundreds of deaths across south-western Europe.

The second heatwave of the summer – with temperatures hitting 47C (116F) in Portugal and 45C to Spain – has triggered wildfires that have forced the evacuation of thousands of people.

In Portugal, the meteorological institute has forecast temperatures of up to 42C with no respite before next week. The civil defence authorities, however, took advantage of a slight drop in temperatures after a July record of 47C on Thursday to try to stamp out one remaining major fire in the north of the country.

“The risk of fires remains very high,” the civil defence chief, Andre Fernandes, said, although media reports said the number of active mainland fires was down to 11 from 20 earlier.

“This is a weekend of extreme vigilance,” he added after a week in which two people were killed and more than 60 injured, and up to 15,000 hectares of forest and brushwood incinerated.

In Portugal, a total of 39,550 hectares (98,000 acres) was ravaged by wildfires from the start of the year until mid-June, more than triple the area in the same period last year, data from the Institute for the Conservation of Nature and Forests showed.

The Lisbon government was to decide on Sunday whether to extend a week-long state of contingency. Portugal’s health ministry said 238 people had died as a result of the heatwave from 7-13 July, most of them elderly people with underlying conditions.

In Spain, the state meteorological agency maintained various levels of alert across the country, warning of temperatures of up to 44C in some regions.

Dozens of forest fires were raging on Saturday in different parts of the country, from the sweltering south to Galicia in the far north-west, where blazes laid waste to 3,500 hectares, the Galician regional government said.

One fire in the south caused the authorities to cordon off for more than 12 hours a section of a key highway connecting Madrid to the Portuguese capital, Lisbon, before the road reopened.

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The fires have scorched thousands of hectares in the south-western Spanish region of Extremadura, while one blaze near the southern city of Málaga forced the preventive evacuation of more than 3,000 people, rescue services said.

A 60-year-old street sweeper died after developing heatstroke while working in Madrid on Friday afternoon, prompting the city council to announce flexible working hours so municipal employees can avoid the hottest periods of the day.

Figures from Spain’s Carlos III public health institute show there were 360 deaths attributable to the heat between last Sunday and Friday. On Friday alone, 123 people died.

(Source: The Guardian)