When David Olivares went to bed on Thursday night, tired from a four-hour motorbike ride, the fire creeping towards his home town of Robledo de Chavela seemed a distant menace.
He woke up the next day, saw the white smoke behind the mountains and decided the threat to Robledo, which lies 30 miles (50km) west of Madrid, had probably receded. The feeling of idle security would not last long. A second look at the horizon revealed the white smoke was beginning to give way to black.
