‘I had an incredible escape’: British woman tells of close encounter with Spanish wildfire
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- Jeanne Henny, a 74-year-old English woman living in the hamlet of Los Pinos in Almería's Bédar municipality for 33 years, evacuated at 5:30pm Thursday after a neighbor warned her to leave with her wheelchair-using friend and two dogs — but she had to abandon her five cats.
- Henny executed a three-point turn on a narrow cliffside road when she saw fire surging onto her escape route toward Bédar, then drove 5km up a rough mountain path to safety; others who took an alternative road died in their cars.
- Juan Manuel Moreno Bonilla, regional president of Andalucía, said at least 12 people died in the fire and most appeared to be foreigners, including hikers caught off-guard in the woods during the sudden blaze.
- Ángel Francisco Collado, mayor of Bédar, said officials went door-to-door directing people along an approved evacuation route or to shelter in place; a group of nine told to stay put defied the order and seven of them died, with two hospitalized with severe burns.
- Francisco Miguel Reyes, mayor of nearby Los Gallardos, called the fire 'fearsome' and said it 'devoured everything in its path,' describing the shift from the previous day as 'devastating.'
- Henny said the fire's speed was the most frightening element — appearing miles away one moment and suddenly on the road the next — and she did not yet know whether her house or cats survived.
Why it matters: Twelve deaths, seven from a single group that ignored shelter-in-place orders, expose how a fast-moving wildfire can outpace both evacuation routes and residents' instincts. For the region's foreign-resident population — many elderly and on limited road networks — the disaster highlights how a single missed decision in the first minutes can be fatal.
