"We can now claim victory," said Paulo Tavares, head of the fire fighter volunteers from the town of Coja. "At this moment everything is under control, if it remains cool this will remain under control."

Hopes rose in the morning that the worst fires in the country, in the region around Miranda do Corvo, about 180 km (110 miles) north of the capital Lisbon, had been put out when the day broke with cooler, foggy weather.

The national fire service said seven fires were still out of control across the country by Wednesday afternoon, but they were small.

Tavares said his fire fighters would now monitor the area in case of new flare-ups but was hopeful predicted cooler weather through the week would keep the fires under control. About 600 fire fighters have been in the region since the weekend.

Portugal has been fighting the fires since May. They have flared up repeatedly with every onslaught of hotter weather, fuelled by the worst drought on record.

Since Sunday, aircraft or helicopters from France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain have helped fight the fires that have killed at least 14 people, according to the Lusa news agency.

German Super Puma helicopters flew relentlessly around Miranda do Corvo until nightfall to douse the last small fires, which have left behind a wasteland of ash and burnt out tree trunks across miles and miles of once-forested hills.

Federal Police Head Superintendent Kai Uwe Matz, part of the team of Super Puma helicopter pilots and crew, said he had never seen blazes as big as those he is fighting in drought-hit Portugal's central mountains.

BURNT FOREST EVERYWHERE

"In the morning we tried to firefight but it was impossible due to smoke and dust in the valleys, so we had no visibility to operate," he told Reuters after an afternoon water-dumping operation.

Reuters photographer Nacho Doce, who accompanied Matz, said that the ground was burnt as far as the eye could see from the helicopter, the landscape dotted with destroyed buildings while smoke rose in columns into the clear sky.

Earlier on Wednesday, when fires reignited, worried residents in the hamlet of Aradas near Miranda do Corvo rushed to douse their homes with hoses and buckets as a precaution against the advancing flames.

Dozens of hamlets and villages have been evacuated across Portugal since the fires started.

Tavares said the destruction around Miranda was of such a scale that he doubted fires could start again.

"There is nothing left to burn," he said.

President Jorge Sampaio urged the government to force property owners to keep their woodlands clean to slow the spread of future fires.