MADRID — Firefighters in southern Spain continued battling one of the country’s deadliest wildfires on Friday, with at least 11 people confirmed dead and 19 others still unaccounted for. The fire swept through rural villages in the Andalusia region near Los Gallardos, sending terrified residents scrambling for any escape route they could find.
As smoke filled the air and flames closed in on their homes, many residents chose to flee — and for some, that decision proved fatal. Officials had instructed residents in certain mountain areas above Los Gallardos to leave via a designated evacuation route, while those in the forested hamlet of Bedar were told to stay inside their homes.
But as the fire moved in fast, some residents in Bedar found it impossible to remain. Antonio Rubio, a handyman who lives there, described leaving on his own initiative Thursday afternoon. “We left the house yesterday afternoon at 5 o’clock. The fire didn’t reach my house — it stopped just short of it — but we could already see so much smoke, even though the fire was some distance away, so we had to leave,” he said. “We did so of our own accord.”
A British woman named Sonia, who lives in Los Gallardos and chose not to share her last name, said she had taken in relatives after authorities told them to evacuate at 7 p.m. local time. She explained that residents were directed away from the main road out of Bedar and instead sent on a back route higher into the mountains before looping toward the coast.
“There are many houses in the middle of the countryside in the mountains, so people would take whichever roads they could,” she said. “The road from Bédar to Los Gallardos was blocked, since the fire had crossed the road and it was impassable.”
Antonio Sanz, who oversees emergency response for the Andalusia region, said residents in Bedar had been given two options: follow the designated evacuation route or remain sheltered in their homes given how close the fire was. He confirmed that some chose a different path — one that proved deadly.
“In situations like this, it is essential that we all follow the routes indicated,” Sanz said. “Unfortunately in this instance a decision was taken to use another route that wasn’t the one recommended for evacuation. Looking for another way out via a dry riverbed turned out to be a trap.”
Sanz said four people — believed to be British based on the right-hand placement of the steering wheel in their car — were found dead inside a single vehicle. Seven additional victims were discovered after apparently getting out of their cars and trying to flee on foot. Of the total confirmed dead, ten appeared to be foreign nationals and one was identified as Spanish.
“The village of Bedar in the end wasn’t affected by the flames in most cases, so that order to shelter in place avoided a more serious situation,” Sanz added.
As officials worked through the early morning hours Friday to identify the dead and locate the missing, worried family members from across the globe turned to social media and local online forums for information. One woman posting from the United States said her brother was among a group of ten people who attempted to escape through a valley near a stream. She shared GPS coordinates and pleaded with emergency responders to search the area.
Regional President Juanma Moreno acknowledged that the impulse to run is a natural human reaction. “When many people see a fire, the first thing they do is run away, don’t they? And of course, they think they know the routes but if they don’t have the right information, those routes can of course turn into a death trap,” he said.
