Much of Europe has been suffering from low rainfall and high temperatures in recent weeks and flames have torn through parched forests and scrubland.

Portugal's Interior Minister Antonio Figueiredo Lopes appealed to European countries for airborne support to help the hundreds of firefighters struggling to contain the blazes amid a heatwave across the country.

Two people have been killed since the fires erupted in Portugal last Sunday, engulfing large swathes of the country as it swelters under temperatures topping 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit).

"It is one of the most serious catastrophes in the past 20 years," said the minister, who visited one of the affected areas.

The siuation continued to deteriorate Saturday around towns north and east of Lisbon, including Castelo Branco and Portalegre, where 20 major blazes and around 200 smaller fires had been recorded.

Some 1,500 firefighters were battling the flames with the help of 350 fire engines and helicopters, and residents had to be evacuated from six villages in the region ahead of the encroaching fire.

Five Moroccan aircraft and two Italian water-carrying planes were sent to Portugal on Saturday to lend support to the hundreds of firefighters, while Germany said that it would also send airborne support.

Figueiredo Lopes noted that neighbouring Spain and France were having to deal with their own forest fires.

About one-third of Portugal is covered by forest and each year thousands of trees are lost to flames during the country's hot, dry summers.

There have been some 1,700 forest fires in the country so far this year, destroying more than 26,000 hectares of brush and trees, according to forest service figures released Friday.

Across the border in Spain about 1,500 houses in Albalate de Zorita, 70 kilometres (45 miles) east of Madrid, were evacuated Friday evening as forest and brush fires raged for a second day.

The blaze, which started for unknown reasons, had come to within a few kilometres of the Zorita nuclear power station, although press reports said the plant was protected by a river and surrounding wasteland.

Another fire started by lightning at Jerez de los Caballeros in the southwest of the country destroyed 800 to 900 hectares of forest and brush.

In the southern Spanish city of Granada a 35 year-old man died from heatstroke, bringing to the death toll from a heatwave to three, national radio reported Saturday.

The heatwave, caused by a mass of hot air sweeping up from Africa, has hit the country as more than eight million Spanish holidaymakers hit the roads and head for the coast at the start of the summer break.

In France high winds that had fanned huge fires in the Provence area of southeast France and the island of Corsica dropped and firefighters managed to control or extinguish blazes that have made this the worst summer for quarter of a century.

Five people have died, thousands have been evacuated and more than 30,000 hectares of forest lands have burned in southeastern France and Corsica since the start of the summer.

TERRA.WIRE