26 June 2017•Update: 26 June 2017
By Alyssa McMurtry
MADRID
Wildfires continue to threaten the Donada National Park in southern Spain, where more than 2,000 locals and tourists have been forced to evacuate their homes and campsites, officials have said.
On Monday morning, three fires continue to burn, two of them under control, as hundreds of firefighters continue to battle the blazes, said the regional government in a statement.
The fires broke out on Saturday night and have destroyed vast areas of land near and in one of Spain’s most important nature reserves, also a UNESCO World Heritage site, home to 50,000 hectares of wetlands and wood.
Authorities ordered the evacuation of a captive breeding center for the highly endangered Iberian lynx. The center has said that a female named Homer did not survive the evacuation, saying she died due to stress.
Spain’s Metrologic agency (Aemet) reports that this year the country experienced the hottest spring on record. The area where the fires continue to rage has not seen rain for 45 days.
