One of Spain's Deadliest Wildfires Kills at Least 12 in Almería, With 23 Missing
Victims were found in burnt-out cars as they tried to outrun flames that swept through the Andalusian countryside during a punishing heatwave.
A wildfire ripped through the Almería countryside in southern Spain overnight into Friday, killing at least 12 people and leaving 23 others unaccounted for, in what officials described as one of the deadliest blazes the country has seen in more than two decades.
The fire spread with ferocious speed through wooded terrain around the town of Los Gallardos, threatening the nearby hamlet of Bédar in the Andalusia region. Many of the victims never made it out. Several were found inside burnt-out vehicles, apparently overtaken by the flames as they tried to flee. Four people who died in one car appeared to be British, authorities said, noting the vehicle's right-hand-drive steering wheel.
Emergency services said many of the dead had ignored shelter-in-place instructions and instead attempted to escape by road — a decision that, amid fast-moving fire and thick smoke, proved fatal on choked rural lanes. Rescue teams worked through the night and into Friday searching scorched hillsides and gutted homes for the missing.
Authorities have not officially confirmed the cause, but said callers who first reported the blaze described a fallen power line that sparked in dry brush and quickly leapt into the surrounding forest. The region was in the grip of an intense heatwave, with high temperatures, low humidity and gusting winds combining into the volatile conditions that turn a spark into a firestorm.
Southern Spain has become one of Europe's frontline zones for extreme heat and fire, and Almería — a sun-baked province popular with foreign tourists and second-home owners — has seen its landscapes grow more combustible as summers lengthen and intensify. Friday's death toll made the fire the deadliest in Spain in over 20 years.
Spanish officials mobilized additional firefighting aircraft and ground crews as the flames continued to threaten homes, and regional leaders urged residents in the fire's path to follow evacuation orders precisely. The tragedy is a stark reminder, one official said, that in a landscape primed to burn, the instinct to run can be more dangerous than the order to stay.
Originally reported by NPR.