‘It felt like the end of the world’: Spanish wildfire evacuees tell of their narrow escapes

From the publisher

When David Olivares went to bed on Thursday night, tired from a four-hour motorbike ride, the fire creeping towards his home town of Robledo de Chavela seemed a distant menace. He woke up the next day, saw the white smoke behind the mountains and decided the threat to Robledo, which lies 30 miles (50km) west of Madrid, had probably receded. The feeling of idle security would not last long. A second look at the horizon revealed the white smoke was beginning to give way to black. “Then I saw the fire at the top of the mountain,” said the 27-year-old as he ate a sandwich in the leisure centre to…

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