Hundreds of firefighters in Spain are battling wildfires that have killed at least 12 people

At least 12 people died as hundreds of firefighters supported by helicopters and drones struggled on Saturday to contain one of them. Deadliest wildfires in Spain.

A combination of light winds and high humidity is helping the crews, but the size of the fire still poses challenges, said Antonio Sanz, head of Andalusia’s emergency services. The fire burned 25 square kilometers of forest and farmland, the size of Manhattan.

Sanz said firefighters burned under control overnight around the perimeter of the fire, which broke out on Thursday in a desert area near the Sierra de Los Filabres mountains in Almeria province, as Spain smouldered under a high heat warning.

Most of the victims, believed to be immigrants, died after ignoring shelter instructions, authorities said. Seven people died on foot after abandoning their vehicles.

Four of the dead are believed to be British because the steering wheel of their burnt car was on the right, like British cars, regional authorities said.

Authorities have finished examining the bodies and collected DNA samples to identify them, Sanz said on Saturday. Authorities evacuated 1,448 people from 11 locations.

Jeffrey and Christine Kember were watching their favorite TV show in their Los Pinos ranch house when the fire alarm went off. Jeffrey Kember said he and his wife jumped into their cars when they saw the flames and were trying to help a neighbor with two toddlers.

He then explained how the couple were separated for a while and he could not even talk to his wife because he did not have a phone with him.

“I’m driving through flames. It was actually flames. I thought, ‘I can’t stop, I have to go,'” Jeffrey Kember told The Associated Press, with his wife by his side outside the evacuation center.

“It was shocking because suddenly I came out of the flame and it was bright sunlight. It was like surreal. It’s funny!”

Spain has always fought again massive heat waves in recent years, temperatures have often exceeded 104 degrees Fahrenheit. Wind, high temperatures and little rain help small wildfires grow into unstoppable flames.

Justice Minister Félix Bolaños on Saturday said the fury of the Almeira wildfire is “an emergency.” He said the fire, at its peak, traveled at a speed of 328 meters per minute.

In June, Spain experienced several days of record heat, with more than 1,000 deaths.

Europe is the world’s hottest continent, with temperatures rising at twice the global average since the 1980s, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service. Parts of Western Europe are experiencing their third heat wave in six weeks. Globally, 2025 was third hottest year on record, bringing several intense heat waves across Europe.

Spain does not exist no stranger to wildfiresas last year’s fire season burned more than 971,000 hectares, according to the European Forest Fire Information System, an area twice the size of London. Four people died.

Spain’s deadliest wildfire was in 1979, when 21 people died in Lloret de Mar, a coastal town about an hour north of Barcelona.