Spain firefighters tame Majorca wild blaze

Firefighters on Thursday tamed a wildfire that ravaged 480 hectares (1,180 acres) of land and drove 200 people from their homes on the Spanish holiday island of Majorca, AFP reports citing authorities. The regional rural authorities "officially declared the forest fire under control today at 5:00pm (1500 GMT)" on the northeast of the island, the regional government said in a statement. "Good weather conditions today have allowed the fire to be controlled," but work will continue over the coming days to put it out for good, it added. The fire had burned 480 hectares of which 95 percent was scrubland and five percent pine forest, the statement said. About 200 people and 50 homes had been evacuated in the area on Wednesday, a regional official said, but they were later reported to have returned to their homes. Elsewhere the central government said it had sent water-dumping aircraft and personnel to help fight a total of 15 wildfires in central and northwestern Spain on Thursday. Spain is highly prone to forest fires in summer because of soaring temperatures, strong winds and dry vegetation. Last year wildfires destroyed more than 150,000 hectares of land in Spain from January to July, after one of the driest winters on record. This year the winter was wetter and there have been fewer summer fires so far, with only a fraction of that amount of land burned. Another fire on Majorca last month burned 2,335 hectares of ground, much of it in the Sierra de Tramuntana, a UNESCO-listed mountainous region.