Doñana NP in Spain devastated by forest fire

One of Europe's greatest nature reserves, and a UNESCO World Heritage Park, Doñana National Park in Spain is being consumed by a massive forest fire.

The 52-square-mile park (out of a total protected area of 985 square miles) in southern Spain is famed for its biodiversity and has the reputation of being one of the Continent's last wildernesses. The spreading flames have forced the evacuation of at least 1,500 people who live in the area, as well as destroying the habitat of rare animals such as Iberian Lynx and Spanish Imperial Eagle. About 750 people are being temporarily housed in sports centres, according to emergency services.

The fires are still burning intensely as of today (26 June 2017), amid fears that some of the captive Iberian Lynxes are already dead and that irreparable damage is being done to the reserve's habitats (Photographer unknown).

Locals have speculated that the fire may have been intentionally set, and say that the flames have already reached the lynx breeding centre, with only around eight adults and five cubs of the captive endangered wild cats being rescued at the time of writing; reports on Twitter claim that 13 adults have been left to their fate.

The area of the park currently affected by the fire is very central, and the flames are still spreading (Map data ©2017 Google).

The fire began outside the park near the town of Moguer on the evening of Saturday 24 June 2017, but by the following day had spread to the reserve, where 150 firefighters, 10 helicopters, seven planes and four waterbombing jets were deployed by local authorities to attempt to control the flames. Only the previous week, forest fires killed more than 60 people in neighbouring Portugal.

The job of firefighters was being hindered by drought, with temperatures of up to 39° C, exacerbated by changeable winds, said regional president Susana Diaz, who also told Al Jazeera that the cause of the fire was unknown but that "the human factor cannot be excluded". The whole Spanish province of Huelva which includes Doñana is currently assessed as being at maximum risk of fire.

Spain was badly hit by a series of forest fires in 2015, and some of these are also widely believed to have been set intentionally. The area of the park to which the fire has spread was the subject in 2015 of a failed attempt by a gas company to be acquired for large-scale storage tanks.