LISBON (AFP) - Portuguese firefighters were tackling three forest fires in the centre and north of the country, they said.

The blazes in the northern district of Braga, and Guarda and Viseu in the centre of the country, had mobilised nearly 200 firefighters, the national service of firefighters and civil protection said in a written statement.

Earlier fire services announced that all the forest fires had been brought under control but blazes often restart due to the high afternoon temperatures.

Wildfires, which reached a peak earlier this month when more than 50 blazes raged out of control, have been dying down since Wednesday as temperatures dropped.

The fires have blackened at least 180,000 hectares (450,000 acres) of forest and brush since the start of the year, according to official estimates.

Fifteen people, 10 of whom were firefighters, have died in the blazes, which broke out as Portugal struggles through its worst drought since 1945.

Two of Portugal's 18 administrative districts -- Braganca and Vila Real in the north -- faced a "maximum" risk of fires according to a daily risk assessment put out by the agriculture ministry's Forest Fire Prevention Agency.

Seven other districts, all in the centre and north, faced a "very high" risk, the second-highest level in the five-level scale.