Overview
- Officials say the two fires have joined into a single, active front that has burned about 45,000 hectares and stretches more than 200 kilometres of perimeter.
- The national government declared an emergency and set up a unified command to coordinate the UME, army units, police and regional crews as evacuations escalated.
- Authorities report between about 88,000 and 100,000 people have been evacuated or confined across Madrid, Ávila and parts of Toledo with dozens of towns affected.
- International help is arriving through the EU civil protection system, including water-bombing aircraft from Greece and Italy and a Portuguese firefighting contingent, while crews on the ground say they are overwhelmed.
- The fires are feeding extreme behaviour driven by high heat, dry fuels and shifting gusts that can create their own weather, and officials warn containment will depend on short, uncertain windows of calmer conditions.