Overview
- The fire began in Los Gallardos on Thursday and spread overnight, trapping residents and resulting in at least 12 confirmed deaths.
- Crews burned about 6,600 hectares and evacuated roughly 1,400–1,448 people, with many now returning in stages or being rehoused.
- A weather window on Saturday allowed around 500 personnel and multiple aircraft to shift from defensive tactics to direct attack, and regional leaders announced the blaze was stabilised on Sunday.
- The Guardia Civil has carried out repeated search 'batidas', sent biological samples from the 12 people to Madrid for DNA identification, and arrested two people for disobeying evacuation orders.
- Officials defended not using the ES-Alert mass message system as a technical choice for a patchwork of local evacuations and confinements, and coverage framed the fire as part of a rising trend of severe 'megafires' driven by longer heat seasons and rural land-use change.