Four Britons are among at least 11 people killed by a fast-moving wildfire in southern Spain, as the country swelters through its second heatwave of the summer. The victims were found in a burnt-out right-hand drive car near the village of Bédar in the Los Gallardos municipality of Almería, authorities confirmed. Another seven people died trying to flee the flames on foot through a ravine, and 23 remain unaccounted for.
“There are no words for such pain,” said Antonio Sanz, Andalucía’s emergency minister, as firefighters battled what he called a “terrible and very complex fire, which is spreading very fast”. Sanz said the decision by some to ignore the evacuation route and attempt a different escape had proved fatal. “Unfortunately the decision to look for another way out through a ravine was a real trap,” he added.
“At least 11 killed in Spain wildfire; four Britons among dead found in right-hand drive car.”
The blaze, which broke out on Thursday, injured eight people, four of them seriously. Francisco Miguel Reyes, mayor of Los Gallardos, described the scene as like “a bomb has fallen”. Around 120 people were evacuated from Bédar to a sports centre, and a campsite with 400 people was also affected. Witnesses said the fire may have been caused by a fallen power line, though the cause has not been officially confirmed.
By Friday morning, 150 firefighters and 220 soldiers from Spain’s Military Emergencies Unit were deployed to tackle the inferno. The Guardia Civil urged relatives of the missing to come to their station in La Garrucha to provide DNA samples. “The main objective is to identify the missing people,” a spokesperson said. Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez expressed his “deep sadness and devastation” on X, sending condolences to the families and solidarity with the affected residents.
The regional government revised the death toll from 12 down to 11 after further checks. Sanz said most of the dead appeared to be foreign nationals, but their identification has yet to be confirmed. The fire has so far burned 3,150 hectares of land, and Spain’s prolonged heatwaves – often exceeding 40C – have created conditions for such tragedies to become more frequent.