Europe has been warming twice as fast as the global average since the 1980s, making the region more vulnerable to wildfires.

In neighbouring Portugal, where fires are also blazing, another firefighter was killed on Sunday in a "tragic" traffic accident, President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa said. Fires have also broken out in Greece, France, Turkey and the Balkans as a heatwave has scorched swathes of southern Europe.

The fires have ravaged small, sparsely populated towns in the country's northwest, forcing locals in many cases to act as firefighters. About 2,382 square miles have burned across Spain and Portugal.

Wildfires have ravaged more than 450,000 hectares of land across the Iberian peninsula since the start of the year, setting records in a region particularly hard hit by intensive heatwaves and drought affecting southern Europe.

A heatwave is continuing to affect the Iberian Peninsula. Thousands of firefighters have been deployed to battle ongoing blazes and towns have been evacuated. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez visited affected regions to meet with the heads of emergency teams.

The fires in Spain this year have burned 158,000 hectares or 610 square miles, according to the European Union’s European Forest Fire Information System. That is an area roughly as big as metropolitan London.

Firefighters have been battling to put out blazes across southern Europe in one of the worst summers for wildfires in 20 years