Wildfires

Wildfires - Australia

Lives and homes continue to be threatened by separate out-of-control bushfires burning in Western Australia.

A watch and act alert remains for people on Morgan Road, Bentley Road, Gavins Road and at Meldene Estate on Marginata Drive, west of Donnybrook, in the state's South West region.

The same alert has been issued for people in the vicinity of Hay Road and South Western Highway in North Greenbushes in the Shire of Bridgetown-Greenbushes.

An earlier alert for the Sawyers Valley townsite and Beelu National Park in the Shire of Mundaring has been downgraded.

Wildfires - California

The fire that scorched about 1,230 acres north of Ventura was 75 percent contained, with full containment expected Tuesday. The blaze erupted Friday night when high winds caused power lines on an oil field to arc. At its peak, the fire closed a 15-mile stretch of an adjacent, six-lane freeway, U.S. 101, and another major north-south route, the Pacific Coast Highway.

Hundreds of firefighters on Sunday mopped up the remnants of a wind-whipped wildfire that threatened dozens of Southern California coastal homes. Authorities said their new worry is a landslide if rain pounds the charred hills.

Wildfires - Spain

Amid unseasonably warm weather, firefighters battled more than 130 wind-fuelled wildfires in northern Spain on Monday which officials suspect were deliberately set.

Nearly 400 firefighters and soldiers struggled against 82 wildfires in Cantabria, a sparsely populated region whose terrain is sliced up by deep mountain valleys, the regional government said.

At least 2,000 hectares (5,000 acres) of "extraordinary ecological value" has burned in the region over the past week, much of it located in two natural parks, it added in a statement.

Cantabria has since September received scant rainfall with average high temperatures of 23 degrees Celsius (73 degrees Fahrenheit), he said.

Strong winds, with gusts of up to 110 kilometres (70 miles) an hour were fanning the flames and preventing the use of water-dropping planes.