LOS GALLARDOS, Spain — At least 12 people have died while trying to escape a wildfire in southern Spain, and 23 others remain missing, officials said Friday, as emergency crews worked to contain one of the deadliest fires the country has recorded.
Antonio Sanz, the head of emergency services in Andalusia, said one of those killed was Spanish, while the others appeared to be foreign nationals. Authorities believe they disregarded orders to remain sheltered and instead attempted to leave by car as flames swept quickly through woodland near Los Gallardos, a town in Almeria province.
The region is a well-known holiday area and is home to a sizable international community, including many residents and visitors from France, Britain and Belgium.
Sanz said four people were found dead in a single vehicle that appeared to be British, based on the car’s right-hand-drive steering wheel.
Eight more victims were discovered after apparently leaving their vehicles and trying to flee on foot along a route that was not included in the official evacuation plan.
Many of the bodies were badly burned and will require DNA testing before they can be formally identified, Sanz said.
“The fire spread like gunpowder,” Andalusia’s regional president, Juan Manuel Moreno, told reporters, describing it as “one of the quickest and most complex we’ve seen.”
Moreno said the blaze had already burned through 3,200 hectares, or about 7,900 acres, with stronger winds forecast later Friday that could further complicate firefighting efforts.
Some of those missing were probably hikers caught off guard in the woods, he said. Rescue workers found several walking sticks at the scene.
The circumstances resemble those in neighbouring Portugal in June 2017, when a huge wildfire during a heatwave killed more than 60 people, with half of the victims burned to death in their cars.
Early start to Spain’s wildfire season
A series of early summer heatwaves has left large parts of Spain parched and vulnerable to any spark, fuelling an early start to wildfire season.
So far this year, about 57,000 hectares have burned, about half the annual average for the past two decades and making up 40% of all the area burned in the European Union, according to the European Forest Fire Information System.
“We usually don’t see these fires until August. They’re starting earlier now because the vegetation dries out sooner,” Roman Garcia, a forest firefighter from Salamanca, said on state broadcaster TVE.
A record heatwave last August provoked the worst wildfire season in three decades, charring 330,000 hectares, an area twice the size of London.
Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez acknowledged at the time that wildfire prevention had been “clearly insufficient” and forestry management inadequate, pledging to do “whatever it takes” to ensure fires on such a scale never happened again.
Sanchez on Friday offered his condolences to the families of the victims and said he felt “enormous sadness and devastation”.
As authorities sought to identify the dead and track down the missing, anxious relatives from around the world posted messages on social media and local forums.
One woman said her daughter, who was driving a red Ford Fiesta and had her dog with her, was missing. Another person from the United States said her brother had been among a group of 10 people who tried to escape through a valley next to a stream.
The fire was believed to have been sparked by a broken power cable that fell into a ditch next to a road and moved at a speed of 15 kilometres (9.32 miles) in two hours, Moreno said.
However, a spokesperson for utility company Endesa contradicted that by saying that the cable carried no voltage.
The death toll already surpasses that of 2005, when 11 firefighters were killed in a blaze in the central province of Guadalajara that was sparked by a barbecue.
Moreno warned that Spain faced a particularly challenging wildfire season, after abundant winter rainfall spurred heavy plant growth, which had dried out to become ideal fuel for fires.
“There’s still a long summer ahead,” he said.
