Portugal's firefighters have mastered most of the deadly forest fires in the north of the country, according to official data Thursday.

Thousands of firefighters tackling deadly wildfires in central and northern Portugal had largely doused the flames in the Aveiro district, one of the worst-hit, as of Thursday morning, and were focusing on a dozen blazes still raging elsewhere.

Forest fires halted traffic on motorways in the Aveiro region of northern Portugal on Monday, as a series of blazes that began