The fire crews were backed by nearly 600 vehicles, 29 water-dropping aircraft and 176 soldiers as they tackled fires that have hit the centre and north of the country since Friday amid scorching temperatures, the civil protection agency said.

Emergency services workers were evacuating residents from villages in the path of the largest fire near the central town of Pampilhosa da Serra which has been burning since Saturday, a spokesman for the mayor's office in the town said.

"The fire is completely uncontrollable," Jorge Custodio told Lisbon-based Radio Renascenca.

"It covers such a large area and has such wide fronts that even with more time and aircraft it is still really difficult to fight it," he added.

About 100 people have so far been taken to an emergency shelter set up at a student residence in Pampilhosa da Serra, local officials said.

The mayor of the city of Coimbra, the administrative capital of the region, set up a crisis centre which will coordiante the battle against the flames round-the-clock, a spokesman for the mayor's office told the Lusa news agency.

The blaze has already destroyed at least five homes and charred some 20,000 hectares (49,500 acres) of land, he added.

Nearly 400 firefighters backed by over 100 vehicles and five water-dropping aircraft were at the scene of the blaze.

Firefighters said strong winds and the steep inclines found in the region were making it difficult to tame the flames.

Emergency workers meanwhile found the body of an elderly woman near her rural home late on Monday near the central town of Serta, apparently the victim of a wildfire which was sweeping the region, Portuguese media reported.

That blaze has already destroyed six homes and charred some 2,500 hectares (6,200 acres) of forest and scrubland, the mayor of Serta, Jose Farinho, told reporters.

Local firefighters said reinforcements from other parts of Portugal were being called in to battle the blaze, which was burning in a thickly-wooded area that was very difficult to reach.

"There are no roads at all to get to it," Serta firefigher commander Alvaro Monteiro told Radio Renascenca.

Wildfires have destroyed up to 118,000 hectares (292,000 acres) of forest and scrubland so far this year in Portugal, according to government estimates, compared with 130,000 hectares for all of 2004.

Eight firefighters have died battling wildfires this year, including two over the weekend, more than during the previous two years combined.

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