"At around 12 noon, the evacuation alarm sounded on all mobile phones. And that was truly chaotic." Speaks a resident of La Adrada (Ávila) who vividly remembers the moment when, last Saturday, the authorities ordered the evacuation of her town due to the advancing fire. "Several buses were called to evacuate dependent people, the elderly. They went from house to house to ensure no one was left inside," she recounts, a narrative that wouldn't be much different from what 73,152 citizens in Spain could tell today.
The active fires in the provinces of Ávila, Castellón, Madrid, and Toledo have caused the largest evacuation of people in the country in this century. And for some of those affected, this has already extended for over 100 hours: at 7:15 p.m. last Thursday, the residents of Aldea del Fresno (Madrid) received the order to leave on their mobile phones. At the time of this edition's closure, they still hadn't been able to return home.
The evacuated individuals equate to emptying the city of Palencia or Ciudad Real - even adding a few more residents. Or evacuating the capital of Teruel twice. According to the Annual National Security Report, last year 42,913 people were evacuated due to fires; in 2024, only 6,827. Currently, 73,152 residents are evacuated simultaneously.
The historic nature of the situation is also evident when compared to the exodus caused by other major tragedies: 30,000 people spent the night away from home after the earthquake in Lorca (Murcia), although only 10,000 did so forcibly - the rest out of fear - and 7,800 left their homes during the eruption of the volcano in La Palma. The storm that devastated the southern belt of Valencia in 2024 destroyed hundreds of houses but did not lead to as many evacuations. And other major weather events, like the one that days later kept the province of Málaga on edge, forced out a few thousand people. It's possible that over 100,000 people were evacuated during the Tous dam collapse (Valencia, 1982), although the figures from that time are unclear.
In any case, never in this century have 73,152 people been known to still be evacuated from around fifty municipalities in the provinces of Madrid (31,865), Ávila (25,087), Toledo (6,200), and Castellón (10,000) - late yesterday, the Interior Ministry authorized the return of residents to nine towns in Toledo, without specifying the number of people going back home. In addition to the evacuated residents, there are 19,062 people confined to their homes in Madrid, 8,735 in Ávila, and 70,000 in Castellón - 97,797 in total.
Therefore, 170,949 citizens are currently on edge due to three fires: the one that started in Burgohondo (Ávila) on Wednesday, the one affecting the western Sierra of the Community of Madrid since Thursday - consisting of a convergence of three focal points originating in the Madrid municipalities of Villa del Prado and San Martín de Valdeiglesias, and in Almorox (Toledo) - and the one that began on Saturday in Vall d'Uixó (Castellón).
The impact of these three fires on the civilian population is significant because, unlike usual occurrences, these focal points - especially the ones in Madrid and Castellón - did not start in depopulated areas of Spain but in an area with dozens of towns with over a thousand inhabitants that had to be evacuated in record time.
The coordination of the operation has been led by the Ministry of the Interior, which took charge on Thursday night by declaring a national emergency, a situation that is also unprecedented: this level of risk had only been declared, leading the central government to take command, for a few hours during the blackout in April 2025.
The situation for the evacuees is challenging. The exhaustion from hours outside their homes, often moving from one improvised shelter to another, is compounded by the anxiety of not knowing if their homes have been spared from the fire.
Yesterday, residents of the Valle del Tiétar (Ávila) who were evacuated from the village over the weekend wanted to return to join the volunteer teams who, alongside emergency crews, are still there battling the flames. But they couldn't. "The Civil Guard is at every entry and exit point of the towns and is not allowing anyone to enter," explains a resident of La Adrada who until late Sunday was one of those volunteers who stayed in her municipality. She was responsible for counting the residents who remained there, "about 150 people," and their work focused on "creating firebreaks around the residential areas to prevent the fire from reaching the urban area."
"They are exhausted," she describes, a sentiment echoed by other residents in the area who, from outside, were requesting access to their towns yesterday: "They need to rotate. Let these people rest because there are still active fire spots." The Provincial Council, along with the municipalities, is coordinating the supply provision to the volunteers. Meanwhile, their neighbors watch from afar, feeling powerless as their land continues to burn.
Civil Guard commanders acknowledge that one of the major frustrations arising from this emergency is the inability to assist all residents who have chosen to stay in their homes despite evacuation orders. They explain that in a scenario of limited resources, operational priority inevitably focuses on ensuring the safety of those who have left the affected towns and concentrating efforts on evacuation, rescue, and population protection tasks.
However, they argue that this situation has once again highlighted a long-standing issue they have been raising for years: the lack of agents assigned to rural areas. In their view, the scale of the operation required by a disaster of these proportions has shown that the current staffing levels do not allow for simultaneous coverage of all needs, forcing the establishment of priorities and leaving those in the highest-risk areas without the desired surveillance. "We can't reach everything," summarize the consulted commanders, who believe that this crisis has exposed one of the main structural weaknesses of the Ministry of the Interior: the shortage of personnel in vast rural areas, a historical demand of the Armed Institute that, they claim, becomes particularly relevant when a large-scale emergency puts the system under maximum pressure.
According to the latest data provided, as of Sunday, the active fires have consumed around 85,500 hectares: 50,000 in Ávila - the fire originating in Burgohondo is the largest in history -, 25,000 in Madrid, 2,000 in Toledo, and 8,500 in Castellón. Yesterday, the focus of the emergency was on the evolution of the fire on three fronts: Mijares (in the west of the Valle del Tiétar), Casillas (on the eastern flank of the same area), and in the north of San Juan reservoir (Madrid). While there was "improvement" in the first two throughout the day, the latter was still a cause for concern "late yesterday," as stated by the Interior Minister.
On Wednesday, the country will face a new heatwave extending until Sunday, which, according to Fernando Grande-Marlaska, "is crucial, a significant factor to consider in these circumstances." "We call for responsibility from all citizens," he concluded.