Race against time in Spain’s wildfire battle: 24 critical hours before the heat wave

The wildfires ravaging the Spanish province of Ávila in the Castilla y León region and the Madrid region remain active, although their advance has slowed. Firefighting operations continue to be extremely challenging, hampered by strong and shifting winds. After several days of rapid spread, crews managed on Sunday to bring many of the fire fronts under control. However, a number of the most active areas of the blazes remain burning, and the fires are still far from being fully contained.

Efforts are focused on stabilizing these critical fronts, while also protecting nearby communities and preventing the two major fire zones, which are drawing ever closer together, from merging. Emergency crews are carrying out a coordinated assault on the areas burning most intensely.

“Today and tomorrow are absolutely crucial days, because from Wednesday onward the weather forecasts are really negative from the point of view of fighting the fire,” said Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska, referring to the fact that a fourth heat wave is expected to last until Sunday.

“We have to stay positive; we have control of the emergency. We do have to acknowledge that we are moving slowly because the weather conditions are not helping us at all,” he added from the command post in Navalcarnero, near Madrid

From there, Madrid regional premier Isabel Díaz Ayuso summed up the situation in a single word: “Hellish.”

Firefighters and authorities agree that the situation is evolving positively, albeit very slowly, and that the risk of flare-ups remains high, especially with the new heat wave set to reach the Iberian Peninsula on Wednesday. Spain’s Military Emergency Unit (UME) is managing the incidents as a single wildfire, and the government has extended the national emergency declaration to Toledo, in the Castilla-La Mancha region, where in nine of the 11 evacuated municipalities have been authorized to return.

Across the three regions (Madrid, Castilla-La Mancha and Castilla y León), 77,000 hectares have already been affected, and 90,149 people have been evacuated or confined, a figure expected to decrease once the number of resettled residents is updated. In Ávila alone, 50,000 hectares have burned, making it the largest and “most aggressive” wildfire in Spain’s history. In total, the fires encompass a perimeter of 280 kilometers (174 miles), according to Civil Protection data.

To understand the scale of the disaster, two figures stand out: Ávila has a total surface area of about 804,872 hectares, meaning the burned area represents 6.21% of the province; and in Madrid, which covers 802,800 hectares, 3.11% of the region is being consumed by the flames.

At night, firefighters take advantage of lower temperatures and increased humidity to try to stabilize the fires and gradually tackle the most worrying hotspots, such as the San Juan Reservoir area in Madrid and the fires in Mijares and Casillas in Ávila. Once again, all eyes are on the weather, and there is a sense of cautious optimism.

According to Spain’s interior minister, “the weather forecast will not be as favorable as they would like.” Even so, there are still two days ahead during which crews “can be proactive,” Grande-Marlaska noted. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez also warned, as he had on Sunday, that “difficult hours still lie ahead” due to the forecast heat wave.

In response to the situation, the government has announced that it will approve a legislative decree at Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting to extend protections for workers and businesses affected by wildfires across different parts of the country. This includes an extraordinary benefit that will cover situations not previously contemplated, such as workers who are unable to report to their jobs because they have been evacuated, have lost their homes, or no longer have access to basic services.

Conditions facing firefighters in Madrid’s Sierra Oeste, where 25,000 hectares have been affected, and in Ávila are worse than they were on Sunday, though still not as severe as in the previous days.

“They are not yet as bad as when the fire first broke out,” Javier Armenteros, the representative for Spain’s state meteorological agency AEMET in the Madrid region, told EL PAÍS. “But conditions are gradually deteriorating,” he added.

Temperatures are a particular concern: Monday will be the last day with highs below 35ºC (95ºF), while temperatures are expected to rise to 38ºC (100ºF) from Tuesday. Another key factor is relative humidity. The air will be “drier than it was over the weekend,” dropping below 20% during the hottest part of the day.

The battle at the San Juan reservoir

In the Madrid region, three areas are causing particular concern: the surroundings of the Cofio River; the fire fronts near Cadalso de los Vidrios and Villa del Prado; and the residential developments south of the San Juan reservoir, around the town of San Martín de Valdeiglesias. Firefighting efforts are now concentrated in these areas.

The eastern flank of the fire has been stabilized, and crews are working to steadily cool burned terrain and prevent flare-ups. On the western side, closer to Ávila, however, the blaze is still “putting up a fight,” according to the central government’s representative in the region, Francisco Martín.

“The situation remains extremely complex,” said Martin. “Our priority at the moment is the area around the San Juan reservoir. An extraordinary deployment is working intensively to contain that front and prevent it from reaching the town of Valdemaqueda [population 870].”

There are now 13 evacuated municipalities and three under lockdown in the Madrid region. In total, 31,865 people are spending the night away from their homes, while a further 19,262 remain confined to their towns and villages.

There has, however, been some positive news: the 4,500 people evacuated from the El Escorial campsite have been allowed to return, and elderly residents who were moved from a care home in San Martín de Valdeiglesias have also been able to go back to the facility.

‘We’ve faced moments of great danger’

The wildfire in Burgohondo, in the province of Ávila, also remains out of control, although its rate of spread has slowed. The nights have been far from easy, with strong gusts of wind hampering firefighting efforts and creating tense situations, such as the one in the municipality of Sotillo, where burning embers, carried aloft by the wind, flew across a road that firefighters were trying to defend.

Similar scenes have played out in other areas. Particular concern surrounds Casillas (population 673), where some buildings and homes have been damaged, and Mijares (718 inhabitants). The fire is intensifying in certain locations while remaining more or less under control in others. The response has become a highly targeted operation: containing the flames where possible, pulling back when fire activity intensifies, and then moving in again.

The blaze, which broke out last Wednesday, has now reached an estimated perimeter of 160 kilometres (99 miles) on both sides of the Sierra de Gredos. “The perimeter is extremely large, as is the burned area,” said Alejandro Peñalvo, the incident commander for the Burgohondo fire.

Even so, the situation is “considerably more favorable” than had been feared. Work carried out on Monday by the extensive force deployed against the southern fire has yielded results, according to José Luis Gutiérrez, the chief firefighting officer for Castilla y León’s regional wildfire emergency plan (INFOCAL).

“We have faced moments of great danger, particularly while defending the area around the Casillas mountain pass, the entrance to the Iruelas Nature Reserve and the El Tiemblo chestnut forest, as well as the Mijares pass,” he said.

The largest wildfire in Spain’s history has forced the evacuation of 25,087 people across 16 municipalities in the region, while a further 8,735 residents in four municipalities have been ordered to remain indoors. These figures come on top of those affected in Toledo, which is also under a national emergency declaration.

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