As the fire approached their homes and the smoke-filled air became almost impossible to breathe, panicked residents of rural villages in Andalusia, around Los Gallardos in southern Spain, decided to flee - a decision that cost some of them their lives.
Firefighters were battling to bring under control one of the deadliest forest fires in Spanish history yesterday. At least 12 people were killed and 23 were missing yesterday.
Authorities have recommended that residents of certain settlements in the mountainous area above Los Gallardos evacuate along a predetermined route, while residents of the forest hamlet of Bedar have been ordered to stay in their homes.
However, as the fire approached at high speed, Antonio Rubio, a handyman who lives in Bedar, said the smoke was so thick that it was impossible to stay in the house.
"We left the house yesterday (Thursday) around five in the afternoon. The fire didn't reach my house, it stopped just before it, but there was already so much smoke that we had to leave, even though the fire was still some distance away at the time," Rubio said.
"We decided to leave ourselves."
Sonia, a Spanish citizen who lives in Los Gallardos and did not want to give her last name, told Reuters that she received relatives after authorities ordered them to evacuate around 19 p.m.
She stated that they were advised to avoid the main road from Bedar and instead use a side road that leads deeper into the mountain and then back towards the coast.
"There are a lot of houses in the middle of the mountains, so people were trying to use any road they could get through," she said.
“The road from Bedar to Los Gallardos was closed because the fire had crossed it and was no longer passable.”
Staying home saved lives
Antonio Sanz, director of Andalusia's emergency services, said residents of Bedar were ordered to either use the recommended evacuation route or stay in their homes, given that the fire was very close.
"In situations like this, it is crucial that we all follow the routes designated by the relevant authorities," he said.
“Unfortunately, in this case, the decision was made to use another route, which was not recommended for evacuation. The attempt to exit via a dry riverbed proved to be a death trap.”
According to him, four people, who are presumed to be British citizens because their car had a right-hand drive, were killed in one vehicle.
Seven other people were found dead after they are believed to have abandoned their cars and tried to flee on foot.
Sans said the vast majority of victims appeared to be foreign nationals, while one Spanish national was confirmed dead.
"In the end, most of the Bedar village was not engulfed in flames, so the order for people to stay in their homes prevented an even greater tragedy," he added.
In the early hours of yesterday morning, as authorities worked to identify the dead and search for the missing, worried family members from different parts of the world posted messages on social media and local forums.
A woman in the United States contacted local emergency services, saying her brother was part of a group of ten people who had tried to escape through a valley next to a stream. She provided their GPS coordinates and asked rescuers to check them.
The president of the regional government of Andalusia, Juanma Moreno, said that people's instinct to flee was completely understandable.
"When people see a fire, the first thing they want to do is run away. They think they know the roads, but if they don't have the right information, those roads can very easily turn into a death trap," he said.
The circumstances are reminiscent of the tragedy that occurred in neighboring Portugal in June 2017, when a large forest fire during a heat wave killed more than 60 people, half of whom died after burning in their cars.
The fire in Spain is believed to have been caused by a broken electrical cable that fell into a roadside ditch, after which the fire spread at a speed of 15 kilometers in just two hours, Moreno said.
However, a spokesperson for the power company Endesa disputed that claim, stating that no electricity was passing through that cable.
A series of early summer heatwaves have left large parts of Spain parched and highly susceptible to fires that can be started by even the smallest spark, contributing to an earlier start to the forest fire season.
About 57.000 hectares have burned since the beginning of this year, about half the average annual extent over the past two decades. Spain accounts for about 40 percent of the total area burned in the European Union, according to the European Forest Fire Information System.
"Usually we don't see these fires until August. Now they start earlier because the vegetation dries out faster," Roman Garcia, a forest firefighter from Salamanca, told state broadcaster TVE.
A record heatwave in August last year triggered the worst bushfire season in three decades, burning 330.000 hectares, an area twice the size of London.
Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez then admitted that fire prevention was “clearly insufficient” and forest management inadequate, promising to do “everything necessary” to prevent fires of such a scale from ever happening again.
Sanchez expressed his condolences to the families of the victims yesterday and said he felt "enormous sadness and devastation."
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