Wildfires burning near Madrid remained uncontained and out of control early Friday, with the smell of smoke drifting into parts of the Spanish capital and strong winds expected to hamper firefighting efforts, regional authorities said. The overnight advance of the fires was limited, but weather conditions were expected to complicate efforts to bring the blazes -- less than 100 kilometres (60 miles) from Madrid -- under control.
"Meteorological conditions, fundamentally the wind, will complicate firefighting operations this Friday," the Madrid regional government said in a post on X.
Spain's government declared a national emergency in the Madrid region and the neighbouring province of Avila late Thursday, enabling additional resources to be deployed more quickly and placing the Military Emergency Unit (UME) in charge of coordinating the response.
Officials have issued evacuation orders for around 10,000 people in the Madrid region, where some in the city woke up to the smell of smoke, according to residents. Several municipalities remained under confinement orders on Friday.
More than 270 firefighters and military personnel were deployed to tackle the blazes, according to the authorities. Spain has seen a series of wildfires in recent days as a heatwave and dry conditions have heightened the risk of fast-moving fires, particularly in scrubland areas where dry vegetation has fuelled the flames.
The country's largest active wildfire is burning in the province of Guadalajara, around 100 kilometres north of Madrid, where it has scorched about 32,000 hectares over the past week. Nearly 130,000 hectares have burned across Spain since the start of the year, according to the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS).
