MADRID - The smoke has partially blocked out the sun and the smell of burning from one of Spain's biggest wildfires has engulfed the area.
The fire in Guadalajara province, north of Madrid, has been raging for a week and has devastated some 320 square kilometres of hillside, farmland and scrub.
Around 1,200 people were evacuated from more than 30 scattered settlements -- many were given only seconds to flee, and now they dread returning.
Lorenza Benitez said she had never been confronted by a fire -- but now she has seen the region she loves reduced to ashes.
The 77-year-old was among those who fled the village of Bustares on Saturday as the flames closed in. She is now living in a gym 50 km to the south with 75 others.
"My Bustares, everything outside it, all of the nature... everything has burnt," she said. "It's very hard, very painful."
- Turned to ashes -
Maria Isabel Benito, a 57-year-old cleaner from Zarzuela de Jadraque just south Bustares, was given just seconds to grab her identity papers and medicines before flames bore down on her village home.
"It's the first time I've been through that," she told AFP.
"Before, I watched it on the television and thought 'My God! Those poor people!' And now it's my turn to live through it."
She thinks her house will be intact, but the Sierra Norte de Guadalajara natural park "has been entirely lost".
"I'll never see it green again," she said.
In Albendiego, to the north of Bustares, mayor Mario Gallejo and a few farmers stayed to help hundreds of firefighters and specialist troops to contain the flames.
Gallejo said no humans had died but he feared that the wildlife had been "devastated".
Evacuated villagers are sleeping on camp beds in the gym in Humanes, 50 km south of the fire zone.
They get three meals a day, said Red Cross coordinator Felipe Argomaniz, stressing that many were suffering from shock and needed understanding and company above all.
"Imagine that your houses, your villages were burning," he said. "That would hit anyone hard."
After visiting the region on Wednesday, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez told journalists Spain had already faced 22 major fires this year -- four times more than the same period last year -- and blamed climate change for the increase.
Much of Europe is gripped by a major drought with countries from Portugal to Romania confronting parched rivers, water restrictions and devastating wildfires after a historic heatwave in June.
Pedro Llorente, who fled Bustares with his wife and their two chihuahuas, said he needed no convincing about the cause.
"This climate change thing is real, even if there are some people who won't admit it," the 77-year-old said.
"There have always been fires -- but not this fierce, not as wild as the ones we see now."
Emiliano Garcia-Page, president of the Castilla-La Mancha region that includes Guadalajara, told reporters the fire had already consumed around 320 square kilometres.
Strong winds and a tinder-dry landscape meant the fire moved at speed, devouring large amounts of territory in very little time.
- by Margaux Bergey (AFP)