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13-07-2026
MADRID: At least 12 people have died in a wildfire in southern Spain, with early indications suggesting four of the victims are British, according to a local official.
Hundreds of emergency responders are working to extinguish the blaze around Los Gallardos, Almeria, officials say they’ve never had such a devastating fire.
The bodies of the victims were found near the small village of Bedar, just outside Los Gallardos, while 23 others are still missing and hundreds of residents have been evacuated.
The fire is “more or less” under control but “if the wind picks up again, things could get complicated”, the mayor of nearby town Antas tells Spanish media.
Meanwhile, the UK Foreign Office is in touch with the relevant authorities in Spain over the “concerning” reports of British casualties, Downing Street says.
A sustained heatwave with temperatures of around 40C (104F) has caused wildfires across southern Europe this summer.
Peter, on holidays near Los Gallardos, tells the BBC it was “surreal” as the sky became darker, with the “glow” of the fire in the distance, get in touch, external if it’s safe to do so.
The Spanish air force has been using amphibious planes to collect water and drop it from metres above the wildfire in an effort to control the flames.
2026 wildfires in Spain compare to previous years
Like much of Western Europe, Spain has been subject to repeat heatwaves in recent months with some areas seeing record temperatures.
For this point in the year, 2026 has been the fourth worst for wildfires in Spain in the last 20 years, as calculated by hectares burned weekly, according to data from Copernicus, which tracks and logs wildfires for the EU.
Man in nearby Mojacar describes ‘stoic’ but ‘surreal’ atmosphere
More now from Peter Chapman, who as described in our last post, can see the smoke from his holiday home in Mojacar.
He says he and his wife Shelagh went to a supermarket earlier, and describes people with a “surreal look on their faces”.
“I wouldn’t say there’s panic, because people are pretty stoic, but there is a surreal atmosphere. People are concerned for those living there,” he says.
“There’s a local forum in Mojacar where people post comments on Facebook. A lot of people are asking, ‘have you heard from so-and-so?’ or asking others to get in touch if they’ve seen somebody.”
“It’s just terrible,” he says.
Peter Chapman and his wife Shelagh have a holiday home they’ve owned for 20 years in Mojacar, a short drive from Los Gallardos.
They first saw signs of the fire on Thursday evening. “I thought, ‘there’s a storm coming,’ because the sky was getting darker. Then there was that smell of smoke in the air,” Peter tells BBC.
“You could see a glow in the sky in the distance. The only way I can describe it is by thinking of how my mother used to describe the London bombings during the Second World War. It was surreal,” he says.
The couple went to bed as normal and say they woke this morning to ash in the sky and smoke in the air.
“We’re still able to sit outside and we’re not being affected by the smoke at the moment. We’ve seen a number of aircraft in the sky, which we think are picking up water to douse the flames.”
The regional leader of Andalusia Juanma Moreno says there are 30 aircraft and “hundreds of personnel” fighting the fire in Los Gallardos, in a short update on social media. “Stay strong and keep up the great effort,” Moreno adds. (BBC)
