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Burnt vehicles sit outside a charred house in Navas del Rey, west of Madrid, Spain, where wildfires have forced tens of thousands to be evacuated, Sunday, July 26, 2026.<\/p>\n
Manu Fernandez\/AP Photo\/Manu Fernandez<\/p>\n
A firefighter rests inside a fire engine in San Martin de Valdeiglesias, west of Madrid, Spain, where wildfires have forced tens of thousands to be evacuated, Sunday, July 26, 2026.<\/p>\n
Manu Fernandez\/AP Photo\/Manu Fernandez<\/p>\n
A burnt vehicle sits outside a charred house in Navas del Rey, west of Madrid, Spain, where wildfires have forced tens of thousands to be evacuated, Sunday, July 26, 2026.<\/p>\n
Manu Fernandez\/AP Photo\/Manu Fernandez<\/p>\n
Smoke rises from the remains of a tree caught in a wildfire in San Martin de Valdeiglesias, west of Madrid, Spain, Sunday, July 26, 2026.<\/p>\n
Manu Fernandez\/AP Photo\/Manu Fernandez<\/p>\n
VILLAVICIOSA DE OD\u00d3N, Spain (AP) \u2014 Elvira Men\u00e9ndez knows how lucky she is that her house is not a charred ruin like so many others in Spain and France devastated by deadly wildfires.<\/p>\n
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But the 79-year-old retiree can\u2019t help but worry for another family that, like her, fled the raging inferno.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThey have been left with nothing,\u201d said about a young family that lives down her son\u2019s street. \u201cThe house has completely burned down, and they have three children.\u201d<\/p>\n
The wildfires that have raged out of control in recent days in three provinces in central Spain have ravaged tens of thousands of hectares and forced nearly 90,000 people to flee their homes. In the southwest of France, more than 250,000 people have fled their homes as the fire rages through the wine region of Bordeaux.<\/p>\n
Survivors face an uncertain future<\/p>\n
For the hundreds of thousands of people in this situation, the question is the same: What will they find when they\u2019re finally allowed to go home, or to what\u2019s left of it?<\/p>\n
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With no word on when she\u2019ll be able to return to Chapiner\u00eda, her hometown west of the Spanish capital of Madrid, Men\u00e9ndez will spend her third night on Sunday at the makeshift shelter set up in a sports complex in Villaviciosa de Od\u00f3n, a 40-minute drive from the home she was forced to leave as the blaze neared.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt least we\u2019re all together,\u201d said Men\u00e9ndez, who is at the shelter with her family and their dog.<\/p>\n
On Friday afternoon, two major fires near Madrid merged into a single, rapidly spreading blaze. It later combined with another that was already burning in \u00c1vila, north of the capital. This forced the government to declare a national fire emergency for the first time. Since then, the flames have also spread to Toledo, a province southwest. In all, the flames have scorched 77,000 hectares in the central part of the country alone.<\/p>\n
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Men\u00e9ndez\u2019s anguish was shared by Roc\u00edo Dom\u00ednguez, who fled her house with only the clothes on her back. \u201cAll the clothes, all the memories, everything, everything, everything,\u201d were left behind, she told The Associated Press.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe only thing I had time to grab was a kit I have for the dogs,\u201d Dom\u00ednguez added, surrounded by her two beloved pets. Everything else she has with her now \u2014 from the clothes she wears to her food and toiletries \u2014 she received at the shelter.<\/p>\n
For many, it was a scene \u2018like the apocalypse\u2019<\/p>\n
At the evacuation center, where cots have been set up for about 200 people, Dom\u00ednguez still has the terrifying memory of their escape fresh in her mind.<\/p>\n
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\u201cIt was madness with cars going up and down, traffic jams in the village streets as people tried to get out. It looked like the apocalypse,\u201d told Dom\u00ednguez, 35 years old and unemployed, who is with her parents and siblings. \u201cYou couldn\u2019t see anything.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything was covered in ash,\u201d she added. \u201cYou could see all the burned animals.\u201d<\/p>\n
Spanish King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia heard more of those personal testimonies on Sunday as the royals visited another shelter in Villamart\u00edn, about 45 kilometers west of Madrid.<\/p>\n
And those stories may not be the last \u2014 Spain’s Minister of Ecological Transition, Sara Aagesen, later noted that \u201cmore evacuations are still expected\u201d in that area.<\/p>\n
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Queen Letizia told reporters after meeting with the survivors that it was important “to hear how they feel and how they recount their hasty departure from their home. How they have felt the sadness they describe, the anguish, the uncertainty, and those questions they leave hanging in the air,.<\/p>\n
Wildfire brought tragedy on the heels of Spain’s World Cup<\/p>\n
The wildfires have significantly shifted the mood in the country, where just a week ago huge crowds of people took to the streets to celebrate their second FIFA World Cup triumph.<\/p>\n
As the echoes of those celebrations fade, head coach Luis de la Fuente \u2014 one of the driving forces behind the historic victory over Argentina in the final in New Jersey \u2014 visited those affected by the fires at a sports center in Las Rozas.<\/p>\n
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The Spanish Football Federation, which has its headquarters in the same city, has offered the facilities where the newly crowned world champions usually train for the vulnerable families who have been forced to evacuate from their homes.<\/p>\n
The coach said all of Spain is rallying for the wildfire survivors.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of Spain is watching over them,\u201d De la Fuente said in remarks to the national public broadcaster, TVE. \u201cThey have the support of the entire country, the same support we have when we play soccer. It\u2019s exactly the same.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Medrano reported from Madrid.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Burnt vehicles sit outside a charred house in Navas del Rey, west of Madrid, Spain, where wildfires have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61163,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[24548,24608,556,2312,82,1561,2317,2313,2314,2315,2316,9541,5183,17],"class_list":["post-61162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spain","tag-elvira-menendez","tag-europe-wildfires-france-spain-evacuees","tag-france","tag-king-felipe-vi","tag-madrid","tag-package-100024-ap-online","tag-package-100373-mc-complete-state-national","tag-product-30597-ap-business-news-f-wire","tag-product-30598-ap-national-news-report-a-wire","tag-product-31995-ap-online-general-financial-business-news","tag-product-32502-ap-online-europe-news","tag-queen-letizia","tag-sara-aagesen","tag-spain"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61162\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}