More than 3,000 firefighters battled alongside ordinary Portuguese citizens desperate to save their homes from several wildfires that raged across the European country on Thursday, fanned by extreme temperatures and drought conditions linked to climate change.
The central part of the country has been particularly hard hit by a spate of blazes this week. In the village of Bemposta, residents used garden hoses to spray down their lawns and the roofs of their houses in hope that they could save them from the raging wall of red flames that approached through the wooden hills as dusk fell on Wednesday.
