Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said the decision to add to the more than 1400 troops already on wildfire duty came as authorities struggled to contain forest blazes, especially in the northwestern Galicia region, and awaited the arrival of promised aircraft reinforcements from other European countries.
Firefighters are tackling 12 major wildfires in Galicia, all of them near the city of Ourense, the head of the Galician regional government Alfonso Rueda told a press conference with Sánchez on Sunday.
"Homes are still under threat so we have lockdowns in place and are carrying out evacuations," Rueda said.
Galicia has been battling the spreading flames for more than a week.
Temperatures in Spain could reach 45C in some areas on Sunday, the Spanish national weather agency AEMET said. On Saturday, the maximum temperature was 44.7C in the southern city of Cordoba, it said.
"This Sunday, when extraordinarily high temperatures are expected, the danger of wildfires is extreme in most of the country," AEMET said on the social platform X.
The fires in Spain this year have burned 158,000 hectares, an area as big as metropolitan London.
Europe has been warming twice as fast as the global average since the 1980s, according to the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service. Scientists say that climate change is exacerbating the frequency and intensity of heat and dryness in parts of Europe, making the region more vulnerable to wildfires.
Spain's national rail operator Renfe suspended Madrid-Galicia high-speed train services scheduled for Sunday due to the fires.
Galician authorities advised people to wear face masks and limit their time spent outdoors to avoid inhaling smoke and ash.
The scorched area of burnt forest in Portugal this year is 17 times higher than in 2024, at around 139,000 hectares, according to the Institute for the Conservation of Nature and Forests, a government body.
Greece, Bulgaria, Montenegro and Albania have also requested help from the EU's firefighting force in recent days to deal with forest fires. The force has already been activated as many times this year as in all of last year's summer fire season.
In Turkey, where recent wildfires have killed 19 people, parts of the historic region that includes memorials to World War I's Gallipoli campaign were evacuated on Sunday as blazes threatened homes in the country's northwest.
Six villages were evacuated as a precautionary measure, the governor of Canakkale province, Omer Toraman, said.
Some 1300 firefighting personnel backed by 30 aircraft were battling the blaze, according to the General Directorate of Forestry.
A wildfire on the peninsula to the north of the Dardanelles Strait led to the closure of visitor facilities at Gallipoli, the site's management said.
The area is dotted with cemeteries, memorials and other remnants of battles waged between Ottoman and Allied troops in 1915.
Turkey has been struck by hundreds of fires since late June, fuelled by record-breaking temperatures, dry conditions and strong winds.
14°C