Forest fires ravaging Spain's northwest region of Galicia showed signs of retreat today as a 70-year-old man became the fourth person to die after nine days of mostly deliberately-set blazes.
The man died in hospital in the early hours of Saturday from burns he suffered battling flames threatening his home in Caniza, 80 kms (43 miles) southwest of Galicia's smoke-shrouded capital of Santiago de Compostela.
Organized gangs are blamed for hundreds of fires that have swept across parched woodland, making
A firefighter signals while working to put out a forest fire in Pobra do Caraminal, Spain last night.
residents evacuate and sending tourists fleeing from Galicia's rolling hills and sea inlets.
Spain sent 400 paratroopers to Galicia on Saturday to protect airports, power stations and other "essential areas" from arsonists described by the government as "fire terrorists".
Authorities said they had now detained 24 people, ranging from a part-time firefighter to a 90-year-old man, suspected of starting blazes.
"Those arrested are people who knew exactly what they were doing, knew they were committing crimes and went up into the hills to start fires, sometimes more than once," said Perez Tourino, president of Galicia's regional government.
Around 30 blazes burnt out of control in Galicia on Saturday, down from 93 the previous day, authorities said.
A total of 7,000 personnel and nearly 60 aircraft from Spain, Portugal, France and Morocco are fighting fires that have burnt over 25,000 hectares (61,800 acres) of woodland.
They were reinforced by 2,000 troops in what was the Spanish army's biggest ever fire-fighting operation.
"We have a situation that is noticeably better than yesterday and in line with improvements in recent days," said Galician rural agency chief Alfredo Suarez Canal, who estimated 90 percent of the region's fires were deliberately set.
Santiago de Compostela, a destination for thousands of pilgrims, has been threatened by blazes started in nearby woodland sending palls of smoke across the cathedral city.