Firefighters say they've never seen anything like Spain's record blaze

Spanish firefighter Javier García has never faced anything like the record blaze raging near Madrid in his two decades protecting woodlands and rural communities.

“This doesn’t have a precedent,” García told the Associated Press by phone before another long day ahead.

The out-of-control fire has consumed 500 square kilometers — an area five times the size of Barcelona — and forced 25,000 people to flee villages in the smoldering hills of Ávila west of Madrid, the capital.

The ferocity of Spain’s largest recorded wildfire is forcing firefighters to fundamentally change their tactics, prioritizing evacuations and property protection due to the danger posed by fast-moving walls of flames and blazes too powerful to attack directly.

“The evolution is alarming,” García said.

Before, his brigade would tackle fires in the wilderness.

Now they are a last line of defense, focused on saving lives.

No deaths from these fires have been reported, while 79,000 people have fled their homes from the Ávila fire, another fire nearby in the Madrid region and one in eastern Castellón.

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