More than 121,000 people have been evacuated and confined so far due to the forest fires that have burned more than 45,000 hectares in the community of Madrid and Ávila, although the flames are advancing towards Toledo, and due to the fires affecting Toledo and Vall d’Uixò, in Castellón. In other parts of Spain, 20 residents of Murias de Ponjos (León) have also had to be evacuated due to a fire affecting their municipality, and 16 minors from a camp have been evacuated due to a fire in Cuacos de Yuste (Cáceres). The lower intensity of the Sierra Oeste de Madrid fire during the early morning has allowed extinction teams to act on the different fronts and reinforce control lines. Even so, the fire remains active and unstabilized, according to the Government Delegation in the Community of Madrid. This Sunday will again be conditioned by high temperatures, low humidity, and the evolution of the wind, one of the main factors that will determine the fire’s behavior. The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, visits the advanced command post located in Navaluenga (Ávila) this Sunday. The head of the Executive will arrive at 10:00 accompanied by the Minister of Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska; the President of the Junta de Castilla y León, Alfonso Fernández Mañueco, and the Government delegate, Nicanor Sen.
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The Army installs 600 bunk beds in Talavera de la Reina to accommodate evacuees from the Ávila fire
Personnel from the Cerro Negro Artillery Detachment, of the Army, have installed 600 bunk beds in the Talavera de la Reina (Toledo) fairground pavilion to expand the reception capacity for people evacuated due to the Ávila fire. Dozens of evacuees have already spent the night in these facilities.
The action is part of the support operation deployed by the Ministry of Defense, which has reported on the operation through a statement published on X.
Forest fire in Cerro Muriano (Córdoba) controlled
The forest fire that broke out on Friday in Cerro Muriano, Córdoba, has been brought under control at 8:00 this Sunday, according to the Andalusian fire extinction service, Infoca.
The fire was already stabilized on Saturday afternoon, around 20:00, which allowed the Infoca Plan emergency to be lowered to operational situation 0 and the 274 evacuees to return to their homes.
This fire has covered about 200 hectares, but a large part of it has not burned. No houses have been affected either, according to the Vice President and Minister of Presidency, Health and Emergencies, Antonio Sanz.
The fire became very dangerous on Saturday morning, so the decision was made to attack it with more technical fires, which allowed it to be stopped during that night. (Efe)
FOREST FIRES
Extension | Madrid and Ávila fires force more than 100,000 people to evacuate or confine
The large forest fires devastating the province of Ávila and the Community of Madrid have already forced more than 100,000 people to evacuate or confine and affect 45,000 hectares. Both fires remain active and are advancing uncontrollably. For four days, strong wind gusts have hindered extinction efforts, and firefighters have endured exhausting workdays. This Sunday, the operation’s efforts will again focus on protecting populations, preventive evacuation, and preventing the flames from both fronts from merging. Even so, the Military Emergency Unit (UME) already treats them as a single large fire, and the Government has extended the national emergency to Toledo. The key during the day will again be the wind.
You can read the full information here
The fire keeps 12 roads in the Community of Madrid network affected
The Sierra Oeste fire maintains 12 roads with restrictions as of 8:30 AM this Sunday. Sections of the M-501 (kilometers 40 to 62.4), M-507 (28.5 to 36), M-540 (1 to 6.9), M-541 (0 to 6.4), M-531 (0 to 8), M-539 (0 to 6), M-537 (0 to 0.2) and M-512 (up to kilometer 22) remain closed in both directions.
Additionally, single-direction closures continue on the M-512 (ascending direction at kilometer 10.5), M-533 (ascending direction), M-521 (descending direction between kilometers 23 and 29), M-855 (ascending direction), and M-510, between kilometers 20 and 40. The Community of Madrid recommends avoiding travel through affected areas and always following emergency service instructions.
Good news for the weather in Madrid: the wind will no longer be strong
This Sunday brings good news regarding the weather, as the wind is finally easing. Yesterday, Saturday, gusts above 50 were recorded in the Ávila fire zone; in Madrid, above 40, Javier Armenteros, delegate of the State Meteorological Agency (Aemet) in the Community of Madrid, tells this newspaper. “Today’s weather will be much more favorable: the wind will no longer be strong,” Armenteros celebrates. During the early morning, strong northerly wind gusts, over 40, occurred in the mountain peaks of Ávila. For the rest of the day, the wind is expected to be “weaker, and although generally from the north, there may be moments when it changes direction.”
Regarding temperatures, there will be a moderate rise in maximums, leaving values between 31° and 33°. Yesterday it stayed below 30°. The third key in these cases is air humidity, which reached 60% at night, undoubtedly helping firefighters. “In the central hours, it can drop to 20%. Yesterday it stayed around 30%,” the meteorologist points out.
In summary, “conditions are more favorable than in past days, due to the decrease in wind intensity. The problem may lie in changes in direction, which can be very local.” The problem when making an accurate forecast is that “the magnitude of the fire disturbs the entire environment and creates its own meteorological conditions.”
The Spanish Football Federation opens the national team’s residence to host families evacuated due to the fires
The Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) made its residence at the Ciudad del Fútbol in Las Rozas, where national teams usually gather, available on Saturday to house vulnerable families displaced by the forest fires affecting the Community of Madrid and Castilla y León.
The initiative is being carried out in coordination with the Las Rozas City Council and Civil Protection, who channel the reception of displaced people and will prioritize access for families in situations of greater vulnerability, as reported by the federation in a statement disseminated through its website and X profile.
Sánchez to visit fire control center in Navaluenga (Ávila) this Sunday
The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, will visit the advanced command post located in Navaluenga (Ávila) this Sunday. According to the Presidency of the Government, the head of the Executive will attend at ten in the morning accompanied by the Minister of Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska; the President of the Junta de Castilla y León, Alfonso Fernández Mañueco, and the Government delegate, Nicanor Sen.
At this advanced command post, Sánchez will make an institutional statement to the media, as he did this Saturday in Cenicientos, where the command post was set up to monitor the evolution of the flames in the western sierra of Madrid.
Forest fires
The La Vall d’Uixó fire advances uncontrollably through the Sierra de Espadán natural park with 16,000 evacuated
The fire advances uncontrollably through the Sierra de Espadán natural park in Castellón. The fire, which started in a neighborhood of La Vall d’Uixó (32,000 inhabitants), in an urban area next to the mountain, spread throughout the day, fueled by westerly wind gusts exceeding 50 kilometers per hour, high dryness, and scorching heat. With the first light of dawn, aerial means have taken off again this Sunday, hoping that the significant expected decrease in temperatures, dryness, and wind strength will aid extinction efforts. For now, no figures for affected hectares have been provided.
You can read the full information here
Madrid fire remains unstabilized despite slowing its advance overnight
The lower intensity of the Sierra Oeste de Madrid fire during the early morning has allowed extinction teams to act on the different fronts and reinforce control lines, with special attention to protecting the population and threatened urbanizations. Even so, the fire remains active and unstabilized, according to the Government Delegation in the Community of Madrid in a statement published on X.
This Sunday will again be conditioned by high temperatures, low humidity, and the evolution of the wind, one of the main factors that will determine the fire’s behavior. All available state, regional, and international resources remain coordinated in extinction efforts.
Read more The fires in Madrid and Ávila are already forcing 100,000 people to evacuate or confine.
Aerial extinction efforts resume with more favorable forecast in Madrid and Ávila
With the start of the day and a more favorable weather forecast, aerial extinction efforts for the fires resume, due to which nearly 100,000 people have been evacuated and confined in Madrid and Ávila in a fire advancing towards Toledo.
During the night, 50 ground resources have worked to consolidate the efforts made throughout the day, despite some incidents caused by the wind, as reported by Emergencias Madrid.
The main focus of the fires in Spain continues to be between the Community of Madrid, Ávila, and Toledo, covering a perimeter of over 200 kilometers, affecting about 45,000 hectares, of which 21,000 correspond to the province of Ávila, with a perimeter of 112 kilometers.
Additionally, new control lines have been established with heavy machinery around the M-501 during the night.
For today, somewhat weaker gusts are expected from midday, which will mark the fire’s evolution. Throughout the night, with better conditions to fight the fire, with falling temperatures and increased relative humidity, efforts have been made to contain and cool the different fronts that make up this fire.
The evolution of the Burgohondo (Ávila) forest fire has forced the evacuation of eight more towns in the north of Toledo province in recent hours, adding to the three already evacuated throughout Saturday afternoon. (Efe)
Number of people evacuated due to La Vall d’Uixò (Castellón) fire rises to 16,000
Authorities evacuated nearly a thousand residents from the Texas neighborhood of La Vall d’Uixò this morning as a preventive measure due to the evolution of the fire declared this Saturday in this Castellón municipality, bringing the official number of people evacuated by this fire to over 16,000.
According to the mayor of La Vall, Tania Baños, in several videos on X, facing a “totally uncontrolled fire,” the Advanced Command Post has decided to continue evacuating residents of this town, in this last case those from Colonia de San Antonio, more commonly known as Texas.
Baños has indicated that all evacuees will be moved to “areas where they can remain in complete safety.” The mayor has insisted that citizens “please heed” the instructions transmitted from official channels and the emergency, due to a fire with a perimeter of more than 21 kilometers that remains “out of control.” (Efe)
forest fires
When “evacuation” is the word of the day: children, disabled residents, dogs, and also authorities
The fire sweeping through Madrid at full speed seems to have a mind of its own. A few hours ago, it was divided into three fronts that now, after being drawn together and merging into a whole by the dynamics of air currents, form a single tongue of fire that devastates everything in its path. And, as if it knew exactly where to aim, it maliciously approached the base of its main enemy: the Advanced Command Post (PAM) from where authorities design the strategy to combat it.
You can read the full information here
The Government and Ayuso set aside their differences given the magnitude of the fire
The hint of a dispute between some members of the Government and the Community of Madrid regarding the large fire in the southern sierra of the region was silenced this Saturday. Pedro Sánchez and Isabel Díaz Ayuso coincided early in the meeting of the emergency coordination committee held at the command post in the town of Cenicientos, before it had to be evacuated due to the proximity of the flames. Upon his arrival, the President of the Government greeted the head of the Madrid community coldly. Later, Ayuso did not want to appear before the media alongside Sánchez, according to sources from La Moncloa, contrary to what other PP leaders such as the Andalusian Juan Manuel Moreno or the Galician Alfonso Rueda did on similar occasions. But no reproach was made between them in the statements.
You can read the full information here
Firefighters work through the night to try to contain the fire’s advance in Ávila
The night work of firefighters deployed to the south of Ávila, in the Mijares or Casavieja area, has focused on protecting towns and trying to contain the fire’s advance. The work remains pending the evolution of wind and temperatures throughout this Sunday.
Forest fires
Maps | What satellite data and images show about the Ávila and Madrid fires
The evolution of the fire that keeps Ávila, Madrid, and Toledo in emergency has been recorded by the satellites of the European Copernicus program in two complementary ways. On one hand, the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS) traces the polygons of the burned area almost in real-time, allowing the fire’s size to be monitored day by day. On the other hand, Sentinel-2 satellites —from the same Copernicus family— photograph the terrain with images that clearly show the fire’s scar on the landscape.
You can consult all the maps here
Forest Fires
The rich Spain of forest urbanizations feels the danger of fire close by: “At some point, it could happen to us”
The sky over Boadilla del Monte had cleared of ash this Saturday morning, almost no one was wearing a mask, and people had returned to the terraces. Nothing like the previous day, when the mayor, Javier Úbeda, admits they had a tough time until the wind changed direction. The fire from the large blaze devastating the southwest of the Community of Madrid has affected small rural towns in the region’s most peripheral area. Had it penetrated towards the capital, the flames would have affected affluent and much more populated municipalities such as Villanueva de la Cañada, Villaviciosa de Odón, or Boadilla, where what some call forest urbanizations are located, privileged environments but exposed to the danger of fires.
You can read the full information here
forest fires
Madrid forest firefighters: an entrenched conflict amidst a national emergency
At the beginning of the wave of fires in the Community of Madrid that led to the declaration of a national emergency, a group of forest firefighters denounced on Wednesday, in a striking video posted on X, that the regional government had them idle, doing nothing, without vehicles, without tools, without orders. Forest firefighters stopped in the midst of the biggest environmental catastrophe the region has faced. “We have requested activation for the Almorox fire because they have us paralyzed during our workday, we are in conflict, but we are not on strike, we are coming to work,” a spokesperson states in the recording. In response, the regional government issued a harsh statement denouncing the “unacceptable” attitude of these personnel, 60 in total, whom it accuses of “blackmailing” the operational organization in the fires.
You can read the full information here
More than 115,000 evacuated due to fires in Madrid, Ávila, and Castellón
More than 115,000 people have been evacuated and confined so far due to the forest fires that have burned more than 45,000 hectares in the community of Madrid and Ávila, although the flames are advancing towards Toledo, and due to the fire affecting Vall d’Uixò, in Castellón, which reaches a perimeter of 21 kilometers. The vast majority of those affected, about 100,000, are residents of towns in Madrid and Ávila, while the other 15,000 are from Castellón.
In other parts of Spain, 20 residents of Murias de Ponjos (León) have also had to be evacuated due to a fire affecting their municipality, and 16 minors from a camp have been evacuated due to a fire in Cuacos de Yuste (Cáceres). (Efe)
Good morning. We begin the live coverage of the latest news on the fires in Spain, this Sunday, July 26. The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, visits the advanced command post located in Navaluenga (Ávila) at 10:00. He will be accompanied by the Minister of Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska; the President of the Junta de Castilla y León, Alfonso Fernández Mañueco, and the Government delegate, Nicanor Sen.
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