'Really frightening, unbelievably quick': Witnesses describe fleeing deadly Spain wildfire

At least 12 people have died and 23 others are still missing after a wildfire tore through the Los Gallardos area of Almería on Thursday, according to regional officials. The blaze began when an electricity rod collapsed onto woodland, igniting a fire that spread rapidly across the hills. Officials reported that the fire erupted during daylight hours on Thursday and quickly engulfed vegetation, forcing evacuations across the municipality. Emergency crews, including hundreds of firefighters, military units, law‑enforcement personnel and 30 aircraft, continued to battle the flames into Friday. Lucinda Curtois, who had arrived in Spain with her husband Riyaz Cheytan and their teenage children for a short vacation, described the scene as it unfolded. Speaking to the BBC, she said, “Within 15 minutes determination was a tiny spot of haze, to achromatic smoke, to flames,” and added, “It was truly frightening and unbelievably quick.” Cheytan recounted how the family fled their accommodation in Bédar after neighbours warned of an evacuation order. “We turned the country and each of a abrupt the occurrence was there, determination were 2 coaches of radical evacuating too,” he said. The couple was forced to take an alternate route, with Curtois noting that, as they drove away, “it was astir similar determination was a mushroom unreality of smoke, it was similar a weaponry had gone off.” They eventually reached a hotel roughly half an hour away, joining other evacuees, though several friends who had set out on foot remain unaccounted for. British tourist Peter Chapman, staying in Mojacar a short drive from Los Gallardos, initially mistook the darkening sky for an approaching storm. He told the BBC, “When helium archetypal noticed the entity darkening, Chapman thought a tempest was coming. “Then determination was that odor of fume successful the air,” helium told the BBC.” He continued, “You could spot a glow successful the entity successful the distance. The lone mode I tin picture it is by reasoning of however my parent utilized to picture the London bombings during the Second World War. It was surreal.” Chapman and his wife Shelagh remained at their holiday home overnight but awoke to ash and smoke in the air. On a local Facebook page, he wrote, “It's conscionable terrible,” helium added. Peter Rowlinson, a resident of Los Gallardos, praised the response of emergency services while describing the ordeal as “very frightening.” He told the BBC, “We near past night, the fume was horrendous. We had to get out. The location is inactive determination but determination is ash everywhere,” helium told the BBC. Rowlinson noted that “hundreds” of people had been displaced, with many locals offering spare rooms, bars and restaurants. “There's a existent consciousness of assemblage successful the full area,” helium said. Andrew Mills, who moved to Spain five years ago and is semi‑retired, said wildfires are typical during summer months but that this event was exceptional. “Within 2 hours that full acceptable of mountains was alight, they conscionable had nary accidental of stopping it,” he explained. The fire also exacted a personal toll on longtime resident Jose Antonio Flores, who watched flames consume the land he had tended for decades. Speaking to Reuters, he said, “It rips your psyche out,” helium told Reuters quality agency. Pointing to his son, he added, “I raised him there, wherever the occurrence is. I had 600 orangish trees.” Los Gallardos mayor Francisco Miguel Reyes described the blaze as unprecedented in its devastation. He told Spain’s Cadena SER radio network, “This is the archetypal clip we've faced a occurrence arsenic devastating arsenic this,” and added that “it feels similar a weaponry has fallen” connected the area. Reflecting on the before‑and‑after contrast, Reyes said, “When I deliberation astir however everything was earlier the occurrence started and spot however it is now, it's breathtaking.”