Residents Return to Gutted Homes After Madrid Wildfires
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- Residents of El Morro near Navas del Rey returned Wednesday to find two burnt-out cars, charred hedges, and a gutted neighboring house after wildfires west of Madrid forced their evacuation nearly a week earlier, with one handwritten sign on a gate simply reading 'EMPTY.'
- Mercedes Merino, 70, who has lived in El Morro for 35 years, said previous fires were 'nothing like this' and credited a guardian angel for sparing her house while her neighbor's collapsed into warped, burnt building materials with a horizontal chimney.
- Javier Herraiz, 68, fled southwest to Cáceres after the Guardia Civil warned of imminent evacuation, and called the scene on his return 'Dantesque' and 'hell,' though his own home suffered only a warped pipe and a melted rainwater tank.
- Eva Manso credited a sturdy brick wall — and luck — with protecting her home from flames that blackened the steep wooded hillside behind it, noting the Covid lockdown and Storm Filomena were 'nothing like this.'
- The wildfires have consumed tens of thousands of hectares across Madrid, the province of Ávila, and the eastern region of Valencia, with some homeowners who lost everything still owing mortgages on destroyed properties, according to Herraiz.
- Returning residents swept debris, phoned insurance companies, and coped without electricity; one man led his elderly father out of a gutted house for a change of clothes, telling him, 'We're all doing so-so.'
Why it matters: Families in El Morro face total loss — burnt-out houses, ruined gardens, no electricity — with some still owing mortgages on destroyed properties, according to Herraiz. The wildfires have consumed tens of thousands of hectares across at least three Spanish regions (Madrid, Ávila, and Valencia), a scale residents compared unfavorably to Storm Filomena and the Covid lockdown.
