MADRID: Europe’s spate of fierce wildfires abated somewhat Thursday amid cooler temperatures, with French firefighters starting to get the upper hand over two major blazes, Spain taming a fire that killed two people and no new outbreaks reported in Portugal.
But a fire in Slovenia on the border with Italy kicked up strongly Thursday, forcing the evacuation of three villages.
Spanish firefighters were tackling nine blazes, with two said to be especially dangerous in the northwestern Galicia region. Some of the 11,000 people evacuated because of the fires in Spain began returning home, and a major highway in the northwestern Zamora province reopened after two days.
Temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) and a drought have worsened Spain’s wildfires this year. Thursday’s highest temperature in Spain was forecast to be 32 C (90 F).
In France, more than a week of round-the-clock battling against ferocious flames by more than 2,000 firefighters and up to 10 water-dropping planes was slowly winning out against two major wildfires in the tinder-dry pine forests in southwestern France.
The Gironde region’s fire service said both blazes, which had forced the evacuation of tens of thousands of people, were contained.
Although firefighters in France were still tamping down hot spots that could reignite blazes, the fire service said it expects to have tamed the fires’ embers within days. Officials said they will probably be able to declare the fires completely extinguished within weeks.
Officials in Slovenia, meanwhile, said the raging blaze in the southwestern Kras region was the biggest since the country became an independent nation in 1991.
“The fire is nowhere near its end,” Srecko Sestan, head of Slovenia’s civil protection service, told the official STA news agency.
The fire has engulfed 2,000 hectares (nearly 5,000 acres) and set off unexploded ordnance left over from World War I. More than 1,000 firefighters have been fighting the blaze, aided by the Slovenian army and police, as well as helicopters from Austria, Slovakia and Croatia.
In Bosnia, a days-long fire in the southern Blidinje nature park prompted authorities to declare a natural disaster because of the danger it posed to a protected conservation area.
Europe’s wildfire threat eases but blaze grows in Slovenia
https://arab.news/y47b7
Europe’s wildfire threat eases but blaze grows in Slovenia
- A fire in Slovenia on the border with Italy kicked up strongly Thursday, forcing the evacuation of three villages
- Temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius and a drought have worsened Spain's wildfires this year
Bangladesh’s religio-political party open to unity govt
- Opinion polls suggest that Jamaat-e-Islami will finish a close second to the Bangladesh Nationalist Party in the first election it has contested in nearly 17 years
DHAKA: A once-banned Bangladeshi religio-political party, poised for its strongest electoral showing in February’s parliamentary vote, is open to joining a unity government and has held talks with several parties, its chief said.
Opinion polls suggest that Jamaat-e-Islami will finish a close second to the Bangladesh Nationalist Party in the first election it has contested in nearly 17 years as it marks a return to mainstream politics in the predominantly Muslim nation of 175 million.
Jamaat last held power between 2001 and 2006 as a junior coalition partner with the BNP and is open to working with it again.
“We want to see a stable nation for at least five years. If the parties come together, we’ll run the government together,” Jamaat chief Shafiqur Rahman said in an interview at his office in a residential area in Dhaka, days after the party created a buzz by securing a tie-up with a Gen-Z party.
Rahman said anti-corruption must be a shared agenda for any unity government.
The prime minister will come from the party winning the most seats in the Feb. 12 election, he added. If Jamaat wins the most seats, the party will decide whether he himself would be a candidate, Rahman said.
The party’s resurgence follows the ousting of long-time Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in a youth-led uprising in August 2024.
Rahman said Hasina’s continued stay in India after fleeing Dhaka was a concern, as ties between the two countries have hit their lowest point in decades since her downfall.
Asked about Jamaat’s historical closeness to Pakistan, Rahman said: “We maintain relations in a balanced way with all.”
He said any government that includes Jamaat would “not feel comfortable” with President Mohammed Shahabuddin, who was elected unopposed with the Awami League’s backing in 2023.
