Nearly 1,000 firefighters remained mobilised Monday in central Portugal to prevent flare-ups of what authorities said was the biggest forest fire the country has seen — ravaging an area more than 10 times bigger than Manhattan island.

The blaze was only brought under control on Sunday after raging for 11 days and having burned 64,451 hectares (160,000 acres), National Civil Protection Authority spokesman Commander Telmo Ferreira told AFP.

That made it the largest fire ever recorded in Portugal, according to the Institute for the Conservation of Nature and Forests (ICNF). The previous biggest was 53,000 hectares devastated by a forest fire in October 2017.

The blaze covered seven municipalities in Coimbra, Guarda, and Castelo Branco districts and was caused by lightning strikes, official

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