One fireman was slightly injured as he battled the blaze which began on Monday afternoon for unknown reasons near the central town of Alhada, some 200 kilometres (120 miles) north of Lisbon and was threatening several buildings.

Firefighters evacuated 240 employees from a textile factory which had become surrounded by flames while several local residents scrambled to douse the land around their homes with water to protect them from the encroaching fire, images on state-owned television RTP showed.

Portugal, which is suffering though its worst drought in decades, is currently sweltering through a heatwave.

The national weather office has issued a heat warning for eight of the country's 18 regions because of forecasts that temperatures there would hover near 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) over the next few days.

The national weather office expects temperatures to remain above normal for this time of the year across much of Portugal until at least Thursday.

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