The Albany Gazette - Evacuees from Spain's wildfire struggle with scale of devastation

For seven days now, hundreds of firefighters backed by dozens of aircraft have been battling the blaze in Guadalajara province, 100 kilometres north of the capital.

It has forced local officials to evacuate 1,200 people from 34 villages in the sparsely populated area.

Among them was Lorenza Benitez, who said she had never before been confronted with a fire. Now, however she has seen the region she loves reduced to ashes.

She was among the villagers in Bustares who had to evacuate on Saturday as the flames closed in.

"My Bustares, everything outside it, all of the nature... everything has burned," she said. "It's very hard, very painful," said the 77-year-old.

She and 74 others were given shelter in a gym at Humanes, further south.

- 'Now it's my turn' -

Maria Isabel Benito also had to flee.

The 57-year-old cleaning lady said the mayor of Zarzuela de Jadraque gave her just seconds to retrieve her papers and the medicines she needed before fleeing her village home.

"It's the first time I've been through that," she told AFP.

"Before, I watched it on the television and thought 'My God! Those poor people!'. And now it's my turn to live through it," she added.

She thinks her house will be intact when she is finally allowed home.

But the natural park of Sierra Norte de Guadalajara "has been entirely lost", she said. "I'll never see it green again."

The villagers have camp beds in the gym hall and are served three meals every day, said local Red Cross coordinator Felipe Argomaniz.

But people were on edge after their ordeal,

"Imagine that your houses, your villages were burning," he said. "That would hit anyone hard."

More than the shelter, more than the food, "being with them and keeping them company is what matters", he said.

- Sanchez blames climate change -

After visiting the region Wednesday, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez told journalists Spain had already faced 22 major fires this year -- four times more than over the same period last year. He blamed climate change for the increase.

Another evacuee, 77-year-old Pedro Llorente, needs no convincing.

"This climate change thing is real, even if there are some people who won't admit it or believe," he said.

He and his wife were forced to flee Bustares with his wife and their two chihuahuas.

"There have always been fires -- but not this fierce, not as wild as the ones we see now," he insisted.

Castilla-La Mancha regional president Emiliano Garcia-Page told reporters the fire had already consumed around 32,000 hectares -- nearly a quarter of the land burned in Spanish fires so far this year.

Strong winds and a tinder-dry landscape meant that the fire advanced at frightening speed, devouring large amounts of territory in very little time.

And since Tuesday, Spain has been caught in another crushing heatwave, with temperatures in Guadalajara province forecast to rise as high as 39 Celsius on Wednesday.

(T.Wright--TAG)