Firefighters work to control fire in eastern Spain

More than 1,500 people have been evacuated as a major forest fire raged in Spain’s eastern Castellon province, marking an early start to the nation’s fire season amid bone dry conditions.

Although the fire which started on Thursday was still raging on Monday, firefighters say that they now have it under control and it had not expanded overnight.The fire broke out in a province between Valencia and Teruel and has consumed 9884 acres of land.

Emergency services in the region said eight villages had been evacuated, as well as a home for older people in Montan.Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez promised the government's full support to those who had to flee their homes.The cause of the fire was not immediately clear.

Spain officially entered a period of long-term drought at the end of last year, owing to high temperatures and low rainfall over the past three years.In 2022, wildfires burned through 306,555 hectares of land in Spain, an area almost four times the size of New York City, according to European Union data.