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Firefighters battling a wildfire in southern Spain that killed 12 people started to contain the blaze on Saturday as the hardest-hit village remained deserted, with charred vegetation and blackened homes bearing witness to the fire’s destruction. Around 500 firefighters backed by over 20 water-dropping aircraft were battling the blaze which erupted Thursday in the Gallardos area of the southern region of Andalusia, home to many foreign residents.

Calmer winds and higher air humidity levels have allowed firefighters to directly attack the flames for the first time, Antonio Sanz, the Andalusian regional government’s emergency chief, told reporters.”A window of opportunity opened this morning,” he added during an interview with Canal Sur television.”And for the first time, we may be able to start thinking about stabilising the fire.”Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez will on Monday visit the fire-ravaged area, the government said.

Officials said the 12 people who died in the fast-moving fire had been trapped in vehicles and as they tried to flee on foot. The majority were foreigners although their identities have not yet been released.”We were absolutely terrified. We could see the flames. It was horrific,” Manoli Ramos, 72, a councillor in the small whitewashed village of Bedar where the victims were found told AFP.

She recalled another major wildfire in 2012 when residents had been able to return home the following day, saying: “This time it was like hell.”Bedar was virtually a ghost town Saturday afternoon, with nearly all of its residents evacuated, according to an AFP reporter. Police kept the main road into town closed. The hillside village bore the scars of the fire: vegetation had been reduced to ash, while some homes had blackened walls.- ‘Get out’ -Austin Crilly, an 87-year-old Briton who was evacuated from the affected area, said he was watching television when he “saw a huge black cloud — well I thought it was a cloud”.

Shortly after came the warning from police: “‘Take your money, take your cards and get out’,” he told AFP. Officials said some of those who died had not followed orders to evacuate or to shelter in place once the flames got too close. The wildfire — one of the deadliest in Spain’s recent history — forced some 1,500 people to evacuate. It has so far burned over 6,000 hectares in an area of steep ravines that is hard for vehicles to reach.”It wasn’t good.

Not good at all. I’d never seen anything like it. You see things like that in films, but never in real life,” said Martin Smith, 63, a British tourist who was evacuated with his wife, Elizabeth, 65, from the campsite where they were on holiday. The authorities suspect the wildfire began when a power line broke as Spain sweltered in extreme heat, exceeding 40C in recent weeks. Winter and spring rains spurred abundant vegetation that later dried out in successive heat waves, leaving ample fuel for wildfires, officials said.- ‘Never seen before’ -Justice Minister Felix Bolanos said the blaze had at times spread at a rate of 100 metres a minute, “a level of intensity and severity we have never seen before”.”It is clearly a consequence of the climate emergency the world is facing,” he told reporters at the scene of the fire.

Scientists agree that human-driven climate change is making extreme weather events such as heatwaves more likely and more intense. Sanz said Spain’s Civil Guard police had searched the affected areas without finding any further victims, although he cautioned that the search was continuing.”That does not mean it cannot happen, but after the Civil Guard swept the area, including locations that were still hotspots, it gives us hope,” he said.

Sanz said references to 23 missing people were misleading, explaining that the figure referred to people whose relatives had been unable to contact them and who could have reached evacuation centres or other safe locations. He said seven formal missing persons reports had been filed. Officials said they could not establish a definitive toll until the bodies recovered from the fire had been formally identified.bur-al/ds 

Sat, 11 Jul 2026 16:24:20 GMT