A 44-year-old firefighter was killed in southern Spain on Thursday while extinguishing wildfires in the area. At least 1,000 people have been evacuated and a major road has been closed due to the fires near the popular tourist town of Malaga.
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The fire broke out around 9.30pm on Wednesday evening near the tourist town of Estepona and has since destroyed approximately 2,000 hectares of dense forest in the Sierra Bermeja area. Several roads in the area are closed.
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At least 400 firefighters are fighting the fire. “You can imagine the pain and sorrow,” Carmen Crespo, Andalusia’s environment minister, said at a press conference about the dead firefighter.
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The fire is difficult to control, “very dangerous” and is currently being fought with the help of 29 firefighting planes. The area has many steep slopes and strong winds blow. In some cases, the 1,000 evacuated residents only had minutes to leave, according to local media. A witness told Reuters news agency that large clouds of smoke could be seen over the forests.
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Most of the evacuees lived in four communities in the southern Spanish town of Estepona in the province of Malaga. That city is popular with British retirees and holidaymakers. Dutch pensioners also live in the region, but there are a lot fewer than the British.
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José Gracia Urbano, the mayor of Estepona, said investigators believe the fire may have started as it started in two different places. “It’s very suspicious.”
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Since the end of August, fires in Spain have reduced 74,260 hectares to ashes. That’s more than the average for the past ten years, but still less than the 190,000 hectares that were destroyed in 2012, the worst year of the past decade.
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