Four British people dead after getting trapped in car in Spanish wildfire

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Dozens of people are feared dead after wildfires raged across southern Spain, including four British people trapped in a car.

Andalusia’s health minister Antonio Sanz said he believed the occupants of the car were British owing to it being a right-hand drive car.

The bodies of seven other people, believed to be tourists, have been found near the village of Bédar, Almeria, after abandoning their cars to escape the flames on foot.

Mr Sanz said: ‘The decision to take another route instead of the designated evacuation route became a fatal trap.’

He added that they were likely caught off guard by the ‘very fast-moving fire with an extremely high rate of spread.’

Another 19 people are missing in the fires which have been stoked by strong winds and a long period of try weather.

The aggressive wildfire in southern Spain has killed at least 11 people and more are missing (Picture: AFP/Getty)

Crews are tackling the wildfire near Bedar, Los Gallardos, in Almeria today in tough conditions (Picture: AFP/Getty)

Hundreds of people have been evacuated as the flames rip through the rugged terrain (Picture: INFOCA via AP)

More than 600 people have also had to be evacuated from Los Gallardos, a town popular with British expats, in an area that has not seen temperatures fall below 30°C for several weeks.

An investigation is still taking place into the cause of the fire, but early indications suggest it was started by a fallen power line and spread quickly into a nearby forest.

The death toll from the Los Gallardos fire is feared to rise as at least 19 are missing (Picture: AFP/Getty Images)

The wildfire is the third deadliest on record for Spain. In 2005, a fire in Riba de Saelices claimed the lives of 11 firefighters in the Alto Tajo Nature Reserve near Madrid.

In 1984, 20 people, mostly hikers, died in the Canary Islands when the wind suddenly changed direction during a fire.

And the deadliest was in 1979 when 21 people, mostly families with children, died when they could not escape from Lloret de Mar in the Costa Brava.

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