If you are searching for a loved one, contact the family hotline on +34 677 904 624, where they have a list of people and their locations
A WILDFIRE that started in a roadside ditch in the Almeria countryside has spread to become the deadliest forest fire in Andalucia this century.
The fire has killed at least 11 people and forced around 1,000 people from their homes since it broke out on Thursday afternoon.
The blaze began at 4.35pm on Thursday, July 9, near Almocaizar, a hamlet in the hills above Los Gallardos.
Guardia Civil investigators believe it was sparked by a fallen electrical cable, though this has not been confirmed.
Endesa, the utility company whose infrastructure was initially blamed, says the line in question was not theirs and carried no power at the time.
Red Electrica, the national grid operator, has separately denied that the affected high-voltage line belonged to them.
Bedar resident Juanfran, who was out hunting near Cabezo Maria when the fire started, told the EFE news agency it became ‘a tongue of fire’ within two to three hours.
He said new spot fires were breaking out kilometres from the origin as strong, hot wind drove embers ahead of the main blaze.
The fire swept over the A-7 motorway between Antas and Los Gallardos, fed by tall scrubland and pine forest that produced thick black smoke from the first moments.
Los Gallardos and Bedar are inland villages in the hills behind Mojacar, the well-known British expat resort on the Almeria coast.
The fire has since spread into the municipality of Antas, reaching the Los Raimundos district there at around 2am on Friday.
Around 1,000 people were evacuated at the height of the emergency overnight.
About 600 remain away from home, sheltering at a sports pavilion in Garrucha and a sports centre in Mojacar.
A local vet clinic has offered free emergency care for pets left behind or injured in the fire, and residents have been offering spare rooms to those displaced.
The death toll stands at 11, though it fluctuated overnight, briefly reported as high as 12 before being confirmed back down.
Andalucian president Juanma Moreno said 19 people remain unaccounted for, though he stressed these are not formally classed as missing and may simply be in shelters or awaiting identification.
The government delegate in Andalucia said on Friday that no official missing-person reports had yet been filed, and urged families to do so at the Guardia Civil post in Garrucha, where DNA samples are also being collected to help identify the dead.
On the ground, the reassurance has not stopped families from searching, with residents turning to a local community Facebook group to trace missing friends and relatives throughout Friday.
One resident said they had been turned away from the Garrucha post and told to call the family hotline instead.
Another said a relative reported missing from Bedar had since been found alive by a neighbour during the evacuation, treated for burns and taken to hospital in Mojacar.
A third said they were still searching for a friend last heard from the previous evening, fleeing the flames with others and his dog, who had described being surrounded by fire before contact was lost.
By Friday afternoon the response includes 220 troops from the Unidad Militar de Emergencias (UME) — the Spanish army’s dedicated disaster-response unit — and 160 Guardia Civil officers, backed by four water-bombing aircraft.
Infoca has separately deployed 184 firefighters, 13 fire engines and 18 aircraft, including four heavy amphibious water-bombers, backed by a bulldozer and its own medical unit.
Firefighters said the left flank of the fire, near a Buddhist community centre in the hills, could not be reached overnight because the terrain was impassable.
Residents in a local Facebook group also reported the fire threatening Los Burgos, El Pinar and La Serena on Friday, though these have not been confirmed by Infoca, Andalucia’s forest-fire service.
The AL-6109 road was cut in both directions near Bedar, and the A-7 remains closed toward Almeria between the 709 and 714 kilometre markers, after being reopened and shut again several times through the day.
Residents trying to reach Mojacar from Lubrin have been taking a longer route via the AL-P-813, AL-600 and A-1202 roads instead.
The fire has now burned through 31.5 sq km of countryside.
Infoca has classified it as situacion operativa 2 — an elevated response level reflecting the scale of the emergency.
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