Almeria Wildfire Kills at Least 11, With 23 Still Missing
A fast-moving wildfire near Los Gallardos in Almeria has killed at least 11 people, many caught in cars as they tried to flee, while a third heat wave in six weeks grips Western Europe.
- A wildfire near Los Gallardos in Almeria has killed at least 11 people, with 23 still reported missing.
- Several victims were found in burned-out vehicles, believed to have died trying to flee the flames, most of them foreign nationals.
- Around 150 firefighters and 220 soldiers battled the blaze, which has scorched more than 3,200 hectares.
- Western Europe is enduring its third heat wave in six weeks, after Spain recorded more than 1,000 excess heat deaths in June.
For the many Serbian tourists who choose the Andalusian coast each summer, and for the tens of thousands of Serbian citizens working in hospitality across southern Spain, the disaster near Almeria is not a distant wire item but a warning about a Mediterranean where extreme heat is turning into a deadly routine. A fast-moving wildfire that broke out on Thursday near Los Gallardos, in the province of Almeria in southern Spain, had killed at least 11 people by Friday, while 23 remained listed as missing, regional authorities in Andalusia said, describing the tragedy as an event without precedent.
According to early witness accounts, the fire spread from dry vegetation and within hours consumed wooded slopes in the direction of the town of Bedar. Several victims were found in burned-out vehicles, and investigators believe they died trying to leave the threatened area by car at the moment the fire front cut off escape routes. Andalusian regional minister Antonio Sanz called it the most devastating fire the region has seen, while local services confirmed that most of the dead were foreign nationals, among them British tourists found in a right-hand-drive vehicle.
Why did the fire turn into a mass casualty event?
The answer lies in a combination that climatologists in southern Europe have been describing for years: prolonged drought, temperatures that stay above forty degrees Celsius for days, and wind that turns a fire into a moving wall faster than a person can react. Eight people were injured, four of them seriously, and about 50 residents were housed in a cultural center after being evacuated from their homes. Roughly 150 firefighters and 220 soldiers from Spain’s Military Emergency Unit were deployed alongside medical teams and specialist forest crews, but access and suppression were hampered by closed roads and extremely low humidity.
By Friday, more than 3,200 hectares had burned, placing this fire among the deadliest in Spain’s modern history. The cause has not been officially confirmed, though some witnesses point to a downed power line as the possible trigger that ignited the parched brush. Authorities warned that identifying all the victims would take time, since the fire left few traces, and some of the missing could be among the unidentified bodies.
How is Europe entering a more dangerous summer?
The Almeria tragedy coincided with a third heat wave that has struck Western Europe in just six weeks, from the Iberian Peninsula to France and Italy. Data from national health institutes show that Spain alone recorded more than 1,000 excess deaths linked to heat in June, raising the question of how ready civil protection systems are for a season that is only beginning. European wildfire monitoring services already warn that the risk of large fires is rising across the whole Mediterranean, with southern Spain, Portugal and the Balkans among the most exposed areas.
For Serbia, which is itself entering a season of drought and high temperatures, the Andalusian tragedy carries a concrete lesson about the speed at which a local fire can become a mass disaster when infrastructure and warnings fail to outrun the flames. Spanish authorities have announced an internal review of the evacuation, with the question of whether residents were told in time to leave their homes. Will European countries, including our own, manage this summer to turn such lessons into timely warnings before the fire moves again?
