Spain wildfire kills at least 12 as escape routes turn deadly

Several victims were found inside burnt-out vehicles as a wildfire ripped through rural Almeria, turning the road network around Los Gallardos into a fatal escape corridor. At least 12 people died and eight others were injured, including four in serious condition, after flames surged across a rural expat and holiday region near the N-340 highway.

The fire began Thursday afternoon near Los Gallardos in Almeria province and advanced about 15 kilometres in two hours, a pace Andalusia regional leader Juan Manuel Moreno called one of the quickest and most complex fires the region had seen. In a part of southern Spain where residents, tourists and foreign retirees often rely on narrow local roads and unfamiliar tracks, the speed of the blaze left little margin for error.

Authorities pointed to a broken power cable that fell into a ditch next to a road as the suspected spark. The utility company Endesa disputed that account. The flames were driven hard by strong winds and quickly pushed into neighboring Bedar, forcing a race to evacuate homes as smoke thickened over rural villages.

About 500 firefighters and Spain’s Military Emergency Unit were deployed, while roughly 800 people were evacuated and nearly 200 were moved to temporary shelters. Antonio Sanz, a senior Andalusia official, said one Spaniard was among the dead and most of the other victims appeared to be foreign nationals. Several of the dead were found in cars after trying to flee by road; others were believed to have abandoned vehicles and escaped on foot.

The blaze was one of Spain’s deadliest on record and the deadliest in Andalusia.