By lunchtime on Thursday, 1,015,731 hectares had been ravaged by fire, compared to 988,524 hectares of land during the whole of 2017. This is shown by figures from the European system for information on forest fires, Effis. Spain and Portugal are still fighting fires at the same time.
Fire records have already been broken in Spain, Cyprus, Germany and Slovakia. In heavily affected Spain, the fires have claimed four lives, and over 400,000 hectares have burned.
The next worst affected is Portugal, where almost 274,000 hectares have burned until Thursday. After that comes Romania with 126,000 hectares, and France with 35,600 hectares.
