Spain is deploying 500 more soldiers to help battle wildfires that have ravaged parched woodlands during a prolonged heatwave, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said.

The fires in Spain this year have burned 158,000 hectares or 610 square miles, according to the European Union’s European Forest Fire Information System. That is an area roughly as big as metropolitan London.

VILLARDEVÓS (Reuters) -Scorching heat hampered efforts to contain 20 major wildfires across Spain on Sunday, prompting the government to deploy an additional 500 troops from the military emergency unit to support firefighting operations.