Three people have died and seven have been seriously injured in the wildfires that have struck Spain since Sunday, August 10. More than 8,000 people have been evacuated from some 30 municipalities in the Castilla y León region alone. There, the natural monument of Las Médulas, a UNESCO World Heritage site known for its towering red stone cliffs and forests of oak, chestnut and wild cherry trees, which have grown up over the slopes of ancient Roman gold mines, has been reduced to ashes.

In Tarifa, on the Andalusian coast, more than 3,500 people, many of whom were there on vacation, were forced to leave their hotels, campsites and other tourist accommodation on Monday and Tuesday. In Extremadura (in the country's center-west), one village's residents all received alerts sent to their cell phones, instructing them to stay indoors with all the windows and doors shut. Later, an overnight convoy was organized on Wednesday to bring 19 residents who had refused evacuation to safety, after they were threatened by thousands of hectares that caught fire. Near Toledo, in the center of the country, 4,000 people were confined to their homes on Tuesday due to thick black smoke from a fire, which was finally extinguished on Thursday. Fourteen roads and a highway were closed to traffic on Thursday morning, as a precautionary measure.

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