MADRID, July 10 (Reuters) – Eleven people were killed in a wildfire in Almeria in southern Spain, as 150 firefighters battled to bring the blaze under control, Andalusia’s head of emergencies, Antonio Sanz, said.
Sanz said the fire had spread extremely rapidly in a wooded area around the town of Los Gallardos in Almería province in Spain’s southern region of Andalusia, affecting particularly the nearby hamlet of Bedar.
He said the authorities had told residents to stay in their homes and that the deaths appeared to have occurred when people decided to try to evacuate in their cars.
Four people, who he said appeared to be British as the steering wheel of their car was on the right-hand side, died in one vehicle, Sanz said, while seven others were found dead after apparently abandoning their cars and attempting to escape on foot along a route that was not part of the evacuation plan.
Another four people were being treated in hospital for serious burns, Sanz said. He urged residents to follow official instructions and avoid taking risks as authorities focused on saving lives. Authorities were continuing search operations amid concerns that more people could be missing.
The death toll makes it Spain’s deadliest wildfire since 2005, when 11 firefighters were killed in a blaze in the central province of Guadalajara that was sparked by a barbecue and burned thousands of hectares of forest.
That disaster, considered one of the country’s worst wildfire tragedies, prompted major changes to Spain’s wildfire prevention and emergency response systems.
Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said he felt “enormous sadness and devastation” over the consequences of the fire, offering his condolences to the families of those killed and wishing a speedy recovery to the injured.
In a post on X, he said emergency services, security forces and the military emergency unit (UME) had been mobilised to combat the blaze and urged residents to exercise caution.
The latest blaze comes after a wildfire burning out of control in southern France earlier this week forced the evacuation of over 10,000 people from two dozen small towns and villages near the Spanish border.
Early summer heatwaves across western Europe in May and June have parched vast areas of land, making them particularly vulnerable to wildfires this year.
Europe is warming at more than twice the global average, the World Meteorological Organization has said, making prolonged heat episodes increasingly likely.
(Reporting by Akanksha Khushi in Bengaluru. Additional reporting by Emma Pinedo in Madrid; Editing by Lincoln Feast, Aislinn Laing and Ros Russell)
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