15 Aug, 2022 @ 13:45
1 min read

2,500 evacuated as wildfires hit Spain’s Zaragoza and Alicante

Vall De Ebro Fire Bomberos

SOME 2,500 people had to be evacuated in Northern Spain after a wildfire thought to be contained flared out of control, fanned by strong gusts of wind

Emergency services evacuated the village of Anon de Moncayo in Zaragoza  on Sunday (August 14) as flames approached dangerously close to their homes.

Bone-dry vegetation and the intense heat had made the task of firefighters difficult, but by this morning (Monday August 15) the blaze was once more under control, with 6,000 hectares having been scorched.

Zaragoza Fire Ume Twitter
Fighting the flames: Photo: Bomberos de Alicante

A reason for the blaze has not yet been found, although it is thought to have a single point of origin.

Meanwhile a second fire started in Alicante on Saturday night and is still being tackled. So far more than 3,500 hectares has been scorched in the Vall d’Ebo.

Vall De Ebro Fire Bomberos
Fire in the Vall d’Ebro. Photo Bomberos de Alicante

Some 250 firefighters and 16 aircraft are tackling the blaze. Several homes have been evacuated in the municipality of Pego. Residents have been put on alert to be ready to flee as swirling winds are making it difficult to predict in which direction the fire will advance.

This has been the worst start to a summer fire season in Spain since record began.

By mid July dozens of wildfires had devoured tens of thousands of hectares and forced thousands to be evacuated from their homes.

An estimated 200,000 hectares of Spanish countryside had already been ravaged according to the figures released by the European Forest Fire System, overtaking the carnage of 2012 when some 189,000 hectares were destroyed in what was until now the worst summer on record.

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Dilip Kuner

Dilip Kuner is a NCTJ-trained journalist whose first job was on the Folkestone Herald as a trainee in 1988.
He worked up the ladder to be chief reporter and sub editor on the Hastings Observer and later news editor on the Bridlington Free Press.
At the time of the first Gulf War he started working for the Sunday Mirror, covering news stories as diverse as Mick Jagger’s wedding to Jerry Hall (a scoop gleaned at the bar at Heathrow Airport) to massive rent rises at the ‘feudal village’ of Princess Diana’s childhood home of Althorp Park.
In 1994 he decided to move to Spain with his girlfriend (now wife) and brought up three children here.
He initially worked in restaurants with his father, before rejoining the media world in 2013, working in the local press before becoming a copywriter for international firms including Accenture, as well as within a well-known local marketing agency.
He joined the Olive Press as a self-employed journalist during the pandemic lock-down, becoming news editor a few months later.
Since then he has overseen the news desk and production of all six print editions of the Olive Press and had stories published in UK national newspapers and appeared on Sky News.

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