Twelve people were killed and 23 are unaccounted for in a wildfire in Almería in southern Spain, with 150 firefighters working to put out the blaze, the Emergency Agency of Andalucía said early on Friday.
Spanish Presidency, Health, and Emergencies Minister Antonio Sanz called the fire "the most devastating fire to date in our region" and described the situation as an "unprecedented tragedy".
Earlier, there were reports of six deaths from the wildfire.
"Our deepest condolences to the families of the six people who lost their lives in the Los Gallardos and the affection from all of us to the municipalities affected by the fire," Juanma Moreno, the leader of Spain's southern Andalusia region, wrote in a post on X/Twitter.
Foreign nationals ignored shelter instructions
One Spaniard was among the victims and the rest appeared to be foreign nationals who ignored instructions to shelter in place, trying instead to flee by car as flames spread rapidly through a wooded area around the town of Los Gallardos in Almeria province, said Antonio Sanz, head of emergencies in the Andalusia region.
The area is a popular holiday destination and home to many foreigners, especially the French, Britons and Belgians.
Four people, who appeared to be British because the steering wheel of their car was on the right-hand side, died in one vehicle, he said. Seven others were found dead after apparently abandoning their cars and attempting to escape on foot along a route that was not part of the evacuation plan.
"The consequences have been terrible. Everything seems to indicate that, in the case of the dead, the majority - or all of them - are foreign nationals," Sanz said.
Juan Manuel Moreno, head of Andalusia's regional government, said 23 people were missing, some probably hikers. Rescue workers found several walking sticks at the scene.
"I think they’ve been caught off-guard in the woods. When there’s a sudden fire ... you don’t know how to get out," Moreno said.
The circumstances resemble those in neighboring Portugal in June 2017, when a huge wildfire during a heatwave killed more than 60 people, with half of the victims burned to death in their cars.
Some 500 evacuate in Catalonia
Earlier this week, wildfires originating in southwest France spread to the Spanish side of the border, ravaging 2,200 hectares, 97% of them in the protected natural area of Les Gavarres.
Police had arrested an employee of a company contracted by Catalonia's regional government who is suspected of having sparked the wildfire by using an angle grinder at the side of a road.
South of Catalonia, in the eastern Castellon province, 500 people were evacuated after a wildfire entered the Sierra de Espadan national park, home to a significant cork oak forest.
"We usually don't see these fires until August. They’re starting earlier now because the vegetation dries out sooner," Roman Garcia, a forest firefighter from Salamanca, said on state broadcaster TVE.
A record heatwave last August provoked the worst wildfire season in three decades, charring 330,000 ha, an area twice the size of London.
Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez acknowledged at the time that wildfire prevention had been "clearly insufficient" and forestry management inadequate, pledging to do "whatever it takes" to ensure fires on such a scale never happened again.
Sanchez on Friday offered his condolences to the families of the victims and said he felt "enormous sadness and devastation."