Fire crews are still struggling to bring wildfires in the southern Algarve tourist region under control today, officials have said.

The death toll from two weeks of record blazes rose to 16 when a firefighter, who had been burned in a forest fire in central Portugal last week, died of his injuries late Wednesday night.

Almost 500 firefighters, working with 139 fire trucks and helped by 240 soldiers, contained most of the fires in the Algarve region that had raced for five days through a hilly inland area of dense forest. MORE