Elvira Menéndez slept little last night, because a gymnasium is “not like home”: “There are dogs, people who snore,” says this resident of the village of Chapinería, evacuated Friday because of the out-of-control fire west of Madrid.
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Like some 200 other people, she found refuge in this vast gymnasium in Villaviciosa de Odón, 30 km from her home, in the suburbs of the capital.
Even several dozen kilometers from the blaze ravaging the Madrid countryside, the sky remained hazy on Saturday morning and the historic monastery of El Escorial, an important tourist attraction in the country, was shrouded in a grayish mist.
The fire has “exceeded all possible and imaginable limits”, notes Mar Nicolás, mayor of the small neighboring town of Brunete, which is hosting around a hundred evacuees.
“The priority” is “to save lives”, she emphasizes, but the councilor does not hide his concern in the face of “the immense natural disaster that all this is causing”.
In the Villaviciosa de Odón gymnasium, volunteers try to occupy children with games and coloring, and others distribute meals, after a night spent on camp beds.
A photo taken on July 25, 2026 shows a firefighting helicopter dropping water as a wildfire in the mountains threatens to approach the village of Robledo de Chavela, 60 km west of Madrid.
AFP
The volunteers “take good care of us, we were given blankets, something to shower with,” explains Elvira Menéndez.
“I’m 80 years old and I’ve never seen that!” », she exclaims, before confiding that she was very afraid of seeing her whole “life” burn.
On Saturday, the fire had already ravaged more than 25,000 hectares, and 60,000 people had to be evacuated, according to the Interior Ministry.
Victoria Hurtado, a 61-year-old care worker, also had to flee Chapinería, with the sick old man she takes care of on a daily basis.
Both only had time to take a small bag each, containing some clothes and medicine.
“They welcomed us with open arms,” she told AFP, although worried about not knowing when she would be able to return home.
But she remains optimistic for the coming days “because the firefighters are working night and day to put out the fire.”
Sheep and sheep
These violent fires, which are ravaging France and Spain, are the consequence of forests and vegetation made more flammable by the drought and exceptional heat waves which have occurred since June in Western Europe.
Antonio-Luis Rodriguez spent the night in the Villaviciosa de Odón gymnasium with his son.
Having left with only the clothes he was wearing, he is consumed with worry for his dog remaining on the farm he owns on the edge of the village of San Martín de Valdeiglesias, also evacuated.
“Very affected” by the tragedy and still in shock, this 48-year-old man does not mince his words against the authorities, who according to him have not sufficiently cleared the surrounding countryside.
“It rained a lot this winter, the pastures were very high,” explains Antonio-Luis.
He also regrets that many farms are abandoned in Spain.
As a result, the fallow fields are “a deplorable state and the slightest thing that burns, it catches like wildfire”.
He had put sheep in his fields “when the grass was high” so that they could clean the vegetation.
Thanks to the action of the animals, he thinks his farm is still standing, but knows that “the plots all around have been charred”.
He is convinced that leaving more herds of goats and sheep in the mountains “would really help a lot” to control the fires.
