PORTUGAL TRAGEDY: at least 5 teenager announced dead in a fire explosion community mourns …
Portugal began three days of national mourning Tuesday over 41 deaths, with pressure growing on the government to explain why it failed to prevent a tragedy that came just four months after 64 others died in another fast-moving blaze.
Rain and lower temperatures on Tuesday helped emergency teams in Portugal and Spain bring under control most of the forest fires that killed at least 41 people over the weekend.
Portuguese authorities reported that almost all major wildfires were out by Tuesday morning. Some 2,700 firefighters were deployed to prevent re-ignitions in the country’s smoldering forests.
In northwest Spain, where four people died in wildfires, regional authorities in Galicia said 27 forest fires were still out of control.
Investigations were underway to find the cause of the late-season wave of hundreds of forest fires, which Iberian officials blamed mostly on arsonists and freak weather conditions. Temperatures on the Iberian Peninsula exceeded 30 degrees Celsius (86 Fahrenheit) over the weekend and the area was raked by high winds as Hurricane Ophelia churned past in the Atlantic.