MORE than 63,000 residents in the south-west of the Community of Madrid have been ordered to evacuate or placed under lockdown as a string of huge wildfires continue to leave a trail of destruction in the region.
Madrid regional president Isabel Diaz Ayuso admitted on Friday that several wildfire fronts raging west of the capital had grown too large for firefighters to contain, insisting the priority had shifted from extinguishing the flames to ‘saving lives’.
Spain declared a national emergency – the first ever triggered by a natural disaster and only the second such declaration in the country’s history – as three major wildfires tore through around 12,000 hectares of countryside.
The blazes, which began in Villa del Prado, San Martín de Valdeiglesias and Burgohondo, have since merged into a single inferno that Ayuso described as ‘the worst fire in the region’s history’.
Officials also fear the blaze could soon merge with another wildfire burning near Avila, creating an even larger fire front that would be significantly more difficult to bring under control.
Now, a series of haunting images have shed light on the scale of the disaster currently unfolding near the capital:
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