"Entire families have died inside the car": an evacuee from the fire in Almeria

"Many English, Germans and other neighbours were surprised by the fire while fleeing. They saw the flames and wanted to escape. Some took alternative roads... Entire families have died carbonized inside the car", explains Julia with a choked voice. She is one of the people evacuated from Bédar, one of the municipalities most affected by the fire that has been burning since this Friday in Los Gallardos, Almeria.The fire, which has left at least 12 people dead and 23 missing, surprised some neighbors as they fled the flames, according to this neighbor's account to Efe. She explains that many of the affected homes are isolated in the mountains, where numerous foreigners reside. In her case, the smell of burning wood was the first alarm signal: "I was talking to my neighbor and suddenly we saw a very large curtain of smoke behind her house".

Concern quickly grew when the news spread that the flames were approaching from the hamlet of Serena, but also from the other side of the village, from the village of Los Matreros. "I thought: 'This will catch us here in the middle like a sandwich and we'll burn,'" she recalls. Shortly after, the church bells rang loudly to alert the neighbors of the need to leave.

Among the neighbors, the possibility of taking a bus that picked people up and took them to Lubrín, to a safe place, or to Los Gallardos, was being discussed. Julia describes scenes of uncertainty as they abandoned their homes: "My neighbor closed the shutters and called her husband: ‘We’re leaving, we’re leaving.’ People were leaving in one direction and another."

After asking a relative of a Local Police officer if she had to leave, this neighbor decided to quickly leave in her car accompanied by her dog towards the municipality of Vera before the roads were cut off. When she tried to return hours later, access to the town was already restricted. According to her, the officers informed them that they were trying to open a corridor to rescue people who had been cut off by the flames.

She also adds that the origin of the fire is being discussed: "They say a truck knocked down a high-voltage tower and that the fire started with the sparks and high temperatures." This explanation was one of the first hypotheses for the origin of the most virulent fire in years in the area. However, through its X profile, Endesa explained that its technicians have confirmed that the cable was not their property, is not part of the distribution network, and, moreover, had no voltage.

The Minister of the Presidency of the Regional Government of Andalusia, Antonio Sanz, has currently raised the number of evacuated people to 600, of whom 193 are being accommodated in the Lubrín theater, the Garrucha sports center, and a convent in Antas, where a vulnerable population of children, the elderly, and the sick is being attended to.