Temperatures hit nearly 40 degrees Celsius again in northwestern Spain today, making the battle against the wildfires tearing through the region all the more difficult.
Thirty fires are still burning across the country.
To date, tens of thousands of acres of land have burned and thousands have been evacuated, especially from villages and small towns spread across the Galician mountains.
Firefighters have told Sky News that climate change is making the fire season much worse, with prolonged heatwaves and drought fanning flames with unusual intensity.
Castilla Y Leon fire chief Jose Gutierrez said: “Of course there’s no doubt about that.
“I’ve been working for 22 years and we’ve never seen fire conditions like this. It’s completely new to us.”
Of the two deaths reported from the fire, one was a firefighter who was trapped as he fought to contain the blaze.
In some areas of Galicia, people are now allowed to return to their homes.
We visited the small village of O Barrio, where not even a stone church has survived unscathed.
Castilla Y Leon Fire Chief, Jose Gutierrez.
Resident Amparo Corcoba has returned to see what remains of her life.
Her house was still smoldering and it was not safe to go inside.
“It’s very sad, very sad,” she said.
“My husband inherited this house from his parents and he built a little bit of it himself when he was a kid, to make it bigger.
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“So for my husband, this really hurts him, and it hurts me too.”
Minutes after we finished filming, the creaking ceiling between her ground floor and second floor collapsed with a loud bang.
There is a crisis to recover from in this part of Spain, but increasingly there is a bigger issue to consider: whether it is safe to stay in some of these vulnerable communities in the face of climate change. climate change is becoming more and more serious.
Lila Rodriguez lives in the neighboring village of A Veiga de Cascalla
In the neighboring village of A Veiga de Cascalla, Lila Rodriguez told me she had enough.
“It’s the house my father-in-law built and is our family home but our intention is to sell it,” she said.
“It’s a pity, it’s a pity.”
But others like resident Roberto Rodriquez are more philosophical.
Despite being evacuated from his home when the fire broke out, he told Sky News: “Since everything’s burned out, what’s left to burn?”
Roberto Rodriguez is also from A Vieja de Cascalla
“I’m old, where do I go when I retire?
“I still have a nice house.”
For now, that’s true.
Others have not been so lucky and must now pick up the debris, facing an uncertain future as the danger posed by climate change grows.
