A dozen of some 80 fires across the northwestern Galicia region were blazing within two kilometres (1.2 miles) of the city itself, leaving a curtain of black smoke, visible from the central Obradoiro plaza dominated by the famous old cathedral, hanging over the area.

Many of the fires have begun to pose a threat to residential areas of Galicia as well as the northeastern region of Catalonia.

While hundreds of firefighters and water-bombing aircraft and helicopters battled the flames, a leading Spanish regional politician charged that many of the fires appeared to have been started deliberately.

In some cases, death has been the result.

Last Friday, the bodies of two people killed by the same blaze were found in their car in the Pontevedra region of Galicia and Sunday night police found the charred body of a 74-year-old man who died overnight attempting to put out fires near his home at Campo Lameiro, near Santiago.

Those fires ravaged more than 3,000 hectares (7.400 acres) of land.

"We suddenly lost all trace of him around five in the afternoon," local government sources said of the pensioner found dead.

Portugal was also battling a swathe of fires raging the Iberian peninsula since the start of the month, August offering a stark contrast to a quiet July.

A Galician local government spokesman said two fires had prompted local emergency services to call a highest level of alert, as 11 planes and three helicopters entered the battle along with troops.

Galician regional president Emilio Perez Tourino meanwhile asserted that he had no doubt "the majority (of the fires) are caused by criminal means."

He promised the regional authorities would chase down the culprits.

Over the weekend, dozens of residents of villages in the Pontevedra region resorted to simple garden hoses and beating the flames with branches in a futile attempt to beat back the fires.

"What can we do? Our houses are in danger here," one woman told Spanish television.

Another fire destroyed more than 1,000 hectares of land at Ventallo in the northeastern region of Catalonia. Fires in that region, which requested help from French aircraft, forced a temporary closure of the highway going into France late Sunday.

In northern Portugal, meanwhile, six fires were out of control on Monday, with 600 firefighters mobilised, the national fire brigade said.

At Valongo, near the northern city of Porto, scene of one major blaze, the Lusa news agency reported that "people are very frightened as the flames are approaching their houses."

Portugal has lost 870,000 hectares of forest land to fires in the past three years and the country has been on maximum alert since last Wednesday amid continuing high temperatures topping 42 degrees Celsius (108 Fahrenheit).

Temperatures in Spain, where last year 11 volunteer firefighters were killed putting out a fire that destroyed 13,000 hectares (32,000 acres) of land near the east-central city of Guadalajara, have remained slightly below those of the ferocious summer of 2003.

But widespread drought has left vast swathes of the country tinder-dry.

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