In brief
In the small Spanish village of Bedar, a wildfire claimed 12 lives and left 23 people missing as the fire swept through, prompting emergency evacuations. A British family—Lucinda Curtois, partner Riyaz Cheytan, and their teenage children—managed to flee the blaze but later learned that close family friends had perished. The fire blindsided them with a ferocious wall of flames, catching them off guard amid road blockages in the countryside. Authorities confirmed the toll, and the saga underscores the terrifying volatility of such natural disasters.
A British family on holiday in Bedar, a small village in Spain, described the frightening ordeal of escaping one of the country’s deadliest wildfires.
Officials in Spain report that twelve people in the village—including four Britons—were killed, and another twenty‑three residents remain missing.
Lucinda Curtois, who arrived in Spain with her partner Riyaz Cheytan and their teenage children on Thursday, said they were not expecting to encounter a wall of fire.
After escaping the flames, they later learned that close family friends had lost their lives.
“They left their home on foot, I don’t know why,” Curtois said. “I can only presume it was probably because their road was cut off because they live out in the countryside.”
