A devastating wildfire has killed 11 people and left 19 others missing in southern Spain in an extraordinary wildfire that has killed at least 11 people and left 19 others missing, making it one of the country’s deadliest forest fires in decades. Firefighters continued to fight the massive fire on Friday, as officials said strong winds, scorching temperatures and dry vegetation made containment efforts very difficult.
The wildfire happened near Los Gallardos city in Almeria province, where many Spaniards and tourists are going to vacation this holiday season. Most of those who died were foreign residents who did not follow official orders to stay in place and fled by car, officials said.
Antonio Sanz, head of emergencies for the Andalusia regional government of Spain, said preliminary investigations indicate that only one of the victims was Spanish and the other victims were foreign. Four people were found dead in a vehicle which may have been owned by British nationals, he said, because it had a right-hand drive steering wheel. Seven more people were believed to have abandoned their vehicles and tried to escape on foot through an area that was not part of the official evacuation route, he said.
The consequences have been terrible. Everything indicates that most, if not all, of the victims are foreign nationals," Sanz said.
There are still 19 people unaccounted for. Family members from other parts of the world are searching on social media looking for information about their missing loved ones. One woman said her daughter, driving a red Ford Fiesta with her pet dog, had not been seen since the fire began. A family from the United States said they went to emergency responders after losing contact with a group of ten people who were trying to escape through a valley.
It’s being compared to Portugal’s catastrophic 2017 fire, in which more than 60 people died, many of them trapped inside cars trying to flee the approaching fire during an intense heatwave.
Spain has already had an unusually early and intense wildfire season this year as repeated heatwaves have left forests and grasslands dangerously dry. According to the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS), 57,000 hectares of land have already been destroyed by wildfires across Spain in 2026. That is about half the country’s annual average but nearly 40 percent of all land burned across the EU so far this year.
Climate change also has been linked to longer and more dangerous wildfire seasons. Forest firefighter Roman Garcia says the fires of this intensity are usually later in the summer.
"We usually don’t see fires like this until August. They’re starting much earlier now because vegetation dries out sooner," Garcia said in an interview with Spanish state broadcaster TVE.
The exact cause of the wildfire is still under investigation. Pedro Ridao, the mayor of nearby Antas, initially proposed a fallen power cable could have ignited dry scrubland. But Endesa later said there was no electricity on the cable at the time of inspection, and the technicians had no electrical current in it.
And they say powerful afternoon winds helped speed up the fire’s spread, as it quickly engulfed homes, holiday properties, farmland and vehicles.
Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez expressed deep sorrow over the tragedy and expressed his deepest regrets to the families of those who had died.
"I feel enormous sadness and devastation," the Prime Minister said, while also thanking firefighters, emergency workers and volunteers for putting the fire out and bringing back the victims in the search and rescue.
The wildfire is Spain's deadliest since 2005, when 11 firefighters died battling a forest fire along the road to Guadalajara. That disaster resulted in a series of reforms in Spain’s wildfire prevention and emergency response systems. As firefighters continue to fight the flames in Andalusia, residents and tourists are being told that fleeing to the safety of the city can be deadly in a fast-moving fire.
