Spanish PM visits site of deadly wildfire

TURRE, Spain – Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on July 13 visited the scene of one of Spain’s deadliest wildfires in recent history, which has claimed 13 lives and razed a huge area.

The wildfire that broke out on July 9 has transformed picturesque rural settlements into ghost towns and left a trail of destruction in Almeria province, home to many foreign residents near the Mediterranean coast.

About 7,000ha of forest and scrub land has been scorched.

Sanchez arrived in the southern municipality of Turre to meet the emergency services as they work to extinguish the blaze that continued to burn steep, rugged terrain.

The inferno spread at up to 100m per minute at its peak last week, trapping victims in their vehicles or on foot as they tried to flee.

Andalusian regional authorities said on July 12 that a 93-year-old British woman injured in the fire had died in hospital, bringing the death toll to 13.

Authorities have cautioned that the number of missing people remains uncertain until autopsies and the identification of bodies are completed.

Officials coordinating the identification work said on July 12 that 10 formal reports of people missing had been submitted.

British, Belgian and French authorities were helping to provide genetic profiles from relatives.

Calmer winds and cooler temperatures allowed hundreds of firefighters to tame the blaze over the weekend.

The authorities suspect the wildfire began when a power line broke, setting fire to vegetation that had been parched after hot weather that pushed temperatures above 40 deg C.

Scientists say that climate change caused by humans burning fossil fuels is making extreme weather events such as heatwaves, which contribute to wildfires, more likely and more intense.

Deadly wildfires devoured almost 400,000ha of land in Spain in 2025, the highest figure recorded for the country by the European Forest Fire Information System. AFP