Firefighters, troops battle forest fire outside Madrid
Spanish firefighters and military personnel battled amid blistering heat on Monday (August 3) to control a wildfire in the Madrid region.
It had burned through the night and forced the evacuation of several houses in a sparsely populated region 40 kilometers northwest of the Spanish capital.
The director of Madrid's emergency services said early on Monday that firefighters had established a perimeter around the blaze and would now deploy aircraft to drop water.
A number of isolated houses had been evacuated as a precautionary measure but no communities were at risk.
The source of the fire remains unconfirmed.
It comes amid a heatwave across southern Europe which has sent temperatures soaring above 100 degrees Fahrenheit in Spain, leaving it highly vulnerable.
