A British expat turned councillor in Spain has shared footage of a terrifying wildfire in the mountains near his home on the Costa Del Sol. Bill Anderson, who moved to Mijas 20 years ago, first became aware of the conflagration at midday on Friday, July 15.
It came as strong winds and hot, dry weather frustrated firefighters’ efforts in neighbouring France to contain a huge wildfire that ripped through pine forests in the Bordeaux region for a fifth straight day on Saturday, in just another of several blazes scorching the soils of Europe.
The 64-year-old hailed emergency services for their speedy response and reaction to the fire, with specialist aircraft drafted in to tackle the inferno from above. Residents, including expats and holidaymakers, were ordered to evacuate nearby apartments, with reports suggesting around 1,000 people were affected.
Some of the worst fires have been to the west of Malaga, in Portugal, where the pilot of a firefighting plane died on Friday when his plane crashed on an operation in the north east. It was the first fatality in fires in Portugal this year, which have injured more than 160 people and forced hundreds to be evacuated from towns this week.
Bill, 64, who is originally from Edinburgh but moved overseas and later became a local councillor, said: "On this occasion, the wildfire started up in the mountains at around 12pm. It was 37 degrees this afternoon so you can imagine how dry everything is.
"What happens with these fires really depends on what direction the wind is blowing. It can go up and over the mountain and down into another municipality or down towards us. This time, it’s gone over the mountain and people down there are being evacuated. There are some areas that have been evacuated in Mijas just as a precaution because we didn’t know which way the fire was going to go and also because of the smoke.
"It’s very heavy in the sky. It spreads very quickly as these things do. The security services really got on it very quickly. At the moment, it seems to be under control but not completely out. Thankfully, these fires very rarely come down into the tourist areas because they’re so built up, there’s not really anything to catch fire.
"The real danger is in the more rural areas where there are lots of houses built with many having horses, dogs and all sorts of other animals. But from a tourist perspective, it’s not likely to be overly dramatic."
He added: "I haven’t been evacuated on this occasion but I’ve been evacuated three times in the 20 years that I’ve lived here because of wildfires."
The fire season has hit parts of Europe earlier than usual this year after an unusually dry, hot spring that authorities attribute to climate change. More than 3,000 firefighters backed by water-dumping planes are battling blazes in southern France, and Greece sent firefighting equipment to help. More than 11,000 people have been evacuated from villages and campgrounds.
Firefighters managed to contain one of the worst fires overnight, near the Atlantic coast resort of Arcachon, 30 miles west of Bordeaux, that is popular with tourists, the regional emergency service said on Saturday. But it added that “tough meteorological conditions” thwarted efforts to contain the biggest fire in the region, which started in the town of Landiras, south of a valley of Bordeaux vineyards.
They are focusing efforts on using fire engines to surround villages at risk and save as many homes as possible, Charles Lafourcade, overseeing the firefighting operation, told reporters at the scene. The two fires have burned at least 9,650 hectares (23,800 acres) of land.
A similar scene is playing out in Portugal, where more than 3,000 firefighters battled alongside ordinary citizens desperate to save their homes from wildfires fanned by extreme temperatures and drought conditions. The country’s Civil Protection Agency said 10 fires were still burning on Friday.
Portuguese state television RTP reported on Friday that the area burned this year had already exceeded the total for 2021. More than 30,000 hectares (74,000 acres) of land had burned, it said, most in the past week.
Back across the border, Spain struggled to contain several fires, including two that burned about 7,400 hectares (18,200 acres). For a sixth day, firefighters were trying to bring under control a fire started by a lightning strike in the west-central Las Hurdes area, 100 miles west of Madrid. Some 400 people from eight villages were evacuated on Friday as the flames approached their houses and threatened to spread into nearby Monfrague National Park.
Croatia and Hungary have also fought wildfires this week as European countries face exceptional heat this month — also attributed to climate change. Portuguese authorities said a July national high of 47C (116.6F) was registered in the northern town of Pinhao on Wednesday.
Temperature-related deaths have surged in Spain this week amid a heatwave that has kept temperatures above 40C in many areas. According to Spain’s Carlos III Institute, which records temperature-related fatalities daily, 237 deaths were attributed to high temperatures from July 10 to 14, compared with 25 temperature-related deaths the previous week.
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