MADRID — Spain on Thursday mourned its third wildfire death this week and Greece began beating back a blaze threatening its third-largest city as an unrelenting heatwave stoked tinderbox conditions in southern Europe.

The extreme summer heat, which scientists say human-driven climate change is lengthening and intensifying, has fuelled blazes and stretched firefighters across the region, including Portugal and the Balkans.

The fires have particularly scorched Spain, devouring over 157,000 hectares this year — more than triple the area burned during the same period in 2024.

Spanish authorities said one person battling flames in the north-western Castile and Leon region had died, taking the toll to three after earlier reporting fatalities there and near Madrid this week.

Climate change is fuelling larger, more intense wildfires like those in Spain that can alter upper-atmosphere dynamics and create unpredictable winds, making fire behaviour harder to forecast, said Antonio Jordan Lopez, a wildfire expert at the University of Seville.

“Picture a fire so fierce, so fast, and so unpredictable it seems alive, capable of reshaping the weather around it and leaping across kilometres in a heartbeat,” he added.

France announced it would send two water bombers to Spain, which has appealed to the European Union for aircraft to reinforce hard-pressed firefighting teams battling on several fronts, notably in the northwest.

Thousands of people have been evacuated from their homes this week in Spain because of the fires, mostly in Castile and Leon.