Spanish crews fight Valencia wildfire as about 15,000 people evacuated

Spanish firefighters were battling a new fire front near the coastal city of Valencia on Sunday, after authorities said around 15,000 people had been evacuated in the region.

Spain has already moved tens of thousands of people from villages west of Madrid, where officials said extremely dry conditions have been worsened by heatwaves and strong winds. Around Madrid, about 60,000 people have been evacuated, while Portuguese, Italian and other firefighting aircraft are assisting Spanish crews on the ground.

In the Valencia region on Spain's eastern coast, officials said they were struggling to contain the fires. Valencia regional president Juanfran Perez Llorca said late Saturday that the fire was beyond the authorities' capacity to extinguish, had a perimeter of about 21 kilometers, or 13 miles, and that it was still difficult to determine how many hectares had burned.

Spanish authorities also ordered new evacuations on Saturday around Toledo, southwest of Madrid. They described the situation there as complex, with wind gusts pushing the blaze southward.

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has said firefighters are working to save lives. One person has been reported killed by a separate fire in eastern Spain.

The fires are part of a wider emergency in the region. In southwest France, wildfires have forced 250,000 people to leave homes and campsites in what has been described as one of the country's largest peacetime evacuations.