On July 23rd (day zero), I happened to be at our lakeside place in Costa de Madrid, San Martin de Valdeiglesias (40°23’34.9″N 4°22’57.6″W), and we spotted smoke columns to East, then to the West, later all quadrants.
I alerted Civil Protection by radio (am enrolled in their volunteer network for emergencies). Calling 112 (EU’s 911) 4 times failed. Then the evacuation adventure started. (see 9 minutes video below).
Fire
Now, day 7 we are still barred to return, as the inferno besides (Canto Redondo), where the Ruben Bros projected a mega project with 7* hotel and 300 villas, is still burning, spewing embers that reignite all around including our place, since locals are barred from managing the urban-forestal interface and years of accumulated dry vegetal material piles up in roads, plots, public land and forests.
Looking at the EU’s Copernicus sat images, the place is really badly affected.
Lessons learned:
1. reliable info is not available in the midst of the emergency, when you most need it
2. leave ASAP
3. communications systems have and will fail.
