Deadly wildfires rage across Spain as record area of land burnt

But the size and severity of the fires and the intensity of the smoke -- visible from space -- were making "airborne action" difficult," Spanish Defense Minister Margarita Robles told TVE. Across the border in Portugal, some 2,000 firefighters were deployed across the north and centre of the country on Monday, with about half of them concentrated in the town of Arganil. Officials in Castile and Leon said a firefighter died on Sunday night when the water truck he was driving flipped over on a steep forest road and down a slope, days after two other volunteer firefighters were killed in the region.