{"id":216613,"date":"2026-07-10T18:30:58","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T18:30:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wildfires-in-southern-spain-kill-at-least-11-amid-soaring-temperatures-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2026-07-10T18:30:58","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T18:30:58","slug":"wildfires-in-southern-spain-kill-at-least-11-amid-soaring-temperatures-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wildfires-in-southern-spain-kill-at-least-11-amid-soaring-temperatures-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"Wildfires in southern Spain kill at least 11 amid soaring temperatures – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

Twenty-three people missing and four Britons thought to be among those who died trying to flee Almer\u00eda blaze
\u2018I had an incredible escape\u2019: British woman tells of close encounter with wildfire<\/a>
At least 12 people have been killed and 23 are unaccounted for after one of Spain\u2019s deadliest wildfires broke out in the south-eastern province of Almer\u00eda as the country endures its second heatwave of the summer.
The regional government of Andaluc\u00eda said the victims, four of whom are believed to be British, had died while trying to escape the flames near the village of B\u00e9dar in the municipality of Los Gallardos.
\u201cThere are no words for such pain and I want to offer our condolences to the families of the dead,\u201d Antonio Sanz, the region\u2019s emergency minister, said on Friday morning. \u201cThis is terrible news and today the hearts of the people of Andaluc\u00eda are in mourning.\u201d
Sanz said emergency services were tackling a \u201cterrible and very complex fire\u201d that was \u201cspreading very fast\u201d.
He said eight people had been injured \u2013 four of them seriously \u2013 and that the authorities were trying to establish whether there were any more victims of the fire, which began on Thursday afternoon.
According to Sanz, those who had been found dead had tried to flee despite advice recommending that people stay put or follow an official evacuation route. He added that the fire had not ultimately reached B\u00e9dar.
\u201cUnfortunately the decision to look for another way out through a ravine was a real trap,\u201d he said. \u201cFour people who died in one vehicle are thought to be British as the car they were found in was right-hand drive. Seven other people who had got out of their cars and were trying to walk out on a route that wasn\u2019t the evacuation route suffered terrible consequences. It would appear that most of them were also foreigners, but their identification has yet to be confirmed.\u201d
The UK foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, said: \u201cMy thoughts are with all those affected, including British nationals. We are in close contact with the Spanish authorities and stand ready to support those affected. Those in the area should continue to follow official advice.\u201d
The Guardia Civil urged people trying to trace missing family members to go to its station in the nearby town of La Garrucha. \u201cThe main objective is to identify the missing people and to be able to take the DNA samples in order to identify the victims as quickly as possible,\u201d a spokesperson said.
Sanz said efforts to bring in heavy firefighting machinery were being hindered by limited access and \u201cterrible\u201d topography. He added that 800 people had been evacuated, including nearly 200 who were being accommodated in shelters.
Sanz also urged people to follow official advice, saying: \u201cIn an emergency, the authorities\u2019 instructions are not recommendations; they are designed to protect lives. If evacuation or confinement is ordered, do so immediately and following the established routes.\u201d Authorities believe the blaze may have been caused by a fallen power line.
Juan Manuel Moreno Bonilla, the regional president of Andaluc\u00eda, offered his condolences to all those affected by the fire, which he described as \u201cone of the fastest and most complex fires in recent years\u201d.
He added: \u201cEverything is very dry due to the heatwaves, making it the perfect fuel, and combined with the wind, it\u2019s a ticking timebomb.\u201d
By Friday morning, 150 firefighters were tackling the blaze and 220 soldiers from the country\u2019s military emergencies unit were being deployed to help them.
The mayor of Los Gallardos, Francisco Miguel Reyes Mart\u00edn, said people in the area had been devastated by the unprecedented fire. \u201cThis is the first time that we\u2019ve had a fire as destructive as this,\u201d he told Cadena Ser radio. \u201cIt looks like a bomb has gone off in our municipality.\u201d
Moreno\u2019s conservative People\u2019s party (PP) \u2013 which has governed Andaluc\u00eda for the past seven years \u2013 offered its condolences to all the victims of the fire, but also sought to suggest that the country\u2019s socialist-led central government had failed to do enough to prevent the blazes. In fact, under Spain\u2019s devolved system, it is regional governments, rather than the central government, that are responsible for preventing and managing wildfires, and for drawing up emergency response plans.
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\u201cSpain needs better public services across all areas \u2013 especially to prevent and tackle tragedies like the one we\u2019ve suffered in Almer\u00eda today,\u201d said the PP\u2019s secretary general, Miguel Tellado. \u201cSpain urgently needs a central government focused solely and exclusively on management \u2013 and that is something that has been abandoned in Spanish politics over the last few years.\u201d
The accusation drew a furious response from Spain\u2019s socialist transport minister, \u00d3scar Puente.
\u201cIs this shameless piece of trash blaming the Spanish government for the Almer\u00eda fire and its consequences?\u201d Puente said in a post on X. \u201cWhen they cut back on firefighting personnel, which is their responsibility?\u201d He also noted that Moreno\u2019s government had failed to send an emergency alert about the fire to people\u2019s mobile phones. The PP regional government of Val\u00e8ncia was heavily criticised<\/a> for waiting hours to send an emergency alert to people\u2019s phones when deadly floods hit the eastern area in October 2024.
Extreme heat has fuelled devastating wildfires across southern Europe in recent years, the latest in a series of disasters exacerbated by climate breakdown amid a continental rollback of green policies.
In 2017, 66 people died when wildfires ravaged central parts of Portugal<\/a>. Many of the dead perished in their cars as they tried to flee the flames. At least seven people died in wildfires in Spain in 2025<\/a>, a year in which a record 393,000 hectares (971,000 acres) of land was consumed by blazes.
Spain\u2019s prime minister, Pedro S\u00e1nchez, urged people to take extra care. \u201cWe\u2019re feeling immense sadness and desolation in the face of the terrible consequences of the fire affecting the province of Almer\u00eda,\u201d he said. \u201cI want to convey my condolences to the families of those who died in the Los Gallardos forest fire. My wishes for a speedy recovery to the injured and my solidarity with all the affected neighbours.\u201d
In September last year, S\u00e1nchez announced a 10-point plan to prepare the country for the climate emergency<\/a>, saying: \u201cIf we don\u2019t want to bequeath our children a Spain that\u2019s grey from fire and flames, or a Spain that\u2019s brown from floods, then we need a Spain that\u2019s greener.\u201d
He said last August\u2019s heatwave-fuelled wildfires<\/a> \u2013 which burned through an area six times the size of Ibiza and required \u201cthe biggest human and technical deployment\u201d ever seen in Spain \u2013 showed that immediate action had to be taken to mitigate the effects of the climate crisis.
Over the past five years, S\u00e1nchez added, the climate emergency had caused more than 20,000 deaths and cost the public purse \u20ac32bn (\u00a328bn) in material losses.
Health authorities in Spain and France have said that last month\u2019s extreme heat was responsible for more than 2,000 excess deaths in the two countries<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Twenty-three people missing and four Britons thought to be among those who died trying to flee Almer\u00eda blaze\u2018I had an incredible escape\u2019: British woman tells of close encounter with wildfireAt least 12 people have been killed and 23 are unaccounted for after one of Spain\u2019s deadliest wildfires broke out in the south-eastern province of Almer\u00eda […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":216614,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-216613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216613\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/216614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}