Twelve people have died in a forest fire in Almeria, southern Spain, as 150 firefighters work to put out the flames, the Andalusian Emergency Situations Agency said early this morning.
19 people are listed as missing.
Minister of the Presidency, Health and Emergencies Antonio Sanz called the fire "the most devastating fire to date in our region" and described the situation as an "unprecedented tragedy."
There were earlier reports of six deaths in the fire.
"Our deepest condolences to the families of the six people who lost their lives in Los Gallardos and the support of all of us to the municipalities affected by the fire," Juanma Moreno, leader of the southern Spanish region of Andalusia, wrote in a post on the X network.
Los Gallardos is a municipality in the province of Almeria, in the southern Spanish region of Andalusia.
The fire, Reuters reports, broke out after a forest fire that burned out of control in southern France earlier this week forced the evacuation of more than 10.000 people from about two dozen small towns and villages near the border with Spain.
Early summer heatwaves across Western Europe in May and June dried out large areas of land, making them particularly vulnerable to forest fires this year.
Europe is warming more than twice as fast as the global average, the World Meteorological Organization said, making prolonged heatwaves increasingly likely.
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