British Couple Pulled From Ravine With 40% Burns as Spain Wildfire Death Toll Holds at 12

Since the fire broke out late Thursday near the Sierra de Los Filabres mountains in Almería province, the confirmed death toll has held at 12, with search efforts now shifting from firefighting to survivor recovery and identification.

Civil Guard officers searching a ravine near the village of Bédar in the early hours of Friday found a British couple who had been hiking when the blaze overtook them, according to the BBC. The pair were semi-conscious with burns covering 40% of their bodies. Sergeant Pedro Barre told Spain's TVE state broadcaster that rescuers heard distant cries and climbed down the hillside to reach them. "Being able to call out in the condition they were in was a titanic effort," said fellow officer Rafael Zea. Both are now in intensive care.

Fire contained, evacuees start returning

By Sunday, Andalusia's regional president, Juan Manuel Moreno Bonilla, said milder conditions had allowed firefighters to bring the blaze under control and the overall alert had been downgraded, the BBC reported. Regional emergency chief Antonio Sanz said about 600 of the nearly 1,500 people evacuated were being allowed to return home.

Dozens gathered at a roundabout below Bédar Sunday, waiting for a one-hour window to check on their properties, many with no idea whether their homes had survived. Mike and Belinda Lithgoe of Cornwall, who own a nearby holiday property, had been sleeping in their camper van with their dog since the fire started. "It's impossible to know," Mike Lithgoe said, hoping the smoke he saw while fleeing meant the flames went around the village rather than through it.

Most victims died after leaving shelter

Authorities have said most of the 12 dead were foreign nationals, and seven died on foot after abandoning their vehicles, according to the Associated Press, via CBS News. Sanz said some victims chose to find their own way out rather than follow the official evacuation route, ending up on a dry riverbed that "became a real trap."

Four of the dead are believed to be British, identified initially because the wrecked vehicle they were in had a right-hand steering wheel, unlike standard European cars, Sanz said. Autopsies have been completed and DNA samples collected for formal identification, though names have not been officially confirmed as of Sunday.

Andalusia's regional government maintains the lockdown-and-relocate approach, moving 122 people to a nearby theater and sports center, was the only way to guarantee safety once the fire's path became unpredictable. People who tried to self-evacuate rather than shelter in place made decisions in the context of chaos and uncertainty. They faced real-time conditions where fire movement was not fully visible to civilians, making decisions about escape routes difficult to judge in the moment.

What caused it

Reports suggest the fire may have started from a fallen power line, according to the Guardian, though Spanish authorities have not formally confirmed a cause. Fire scientist Guillermo Rein of Imperial College London told the Guardian the blaze hit "the worst possible combination": bone-dry vegetation from a hot summer following a wet winter and spring, strong winds, and a nearby community caught unprepared.

Spain's Justice Minister Félix Bolaños called it a product of "climate emergency" Saturday, noting the fire advanced as fast as 328 feet per minute at its peak, according to the AP. Data from the European Forest Fire Information System published this week shows Spain has burned double its usual area for this time of year, with triple the normal number of fires. Whether that reflects long-term climate trends, land-management decisions, or both remains a subject of dispute among scientists and Spanish officials, but the raw fire-behavior numbers are not in question.

The fire scorched roughly 25 square miles, comparable to the size of Manhattan, before crews contained it using overnight controlled burns around its perimeter. Twenty-three people remained unaccounted for as of Saturday's briefing, according to CBS News, a number authorities have not updated since. Formal identification of the four believed-British victims and confirmation of what killed the two Britons found alive in the ravine are the two immediate open threads investigators still have to close.