At least 11 people have been killed and 19 are unaccounted for after a fast-moving wildfire broke out in south-east Spain as the country endures its second heatwave of the summer.

The regional government of Andalucía said the victims, four of whom are believed to be British, had died while trying to flee the flames near the village of Bédar in the Los Gallardos municipality of Almería.

“There are no words for such pain and I want to offer our condolences to the families of the dead,” Antonio Sanz, the region’s emergency minister, said on Friday morning. “This is terrible news and today the hearts of the people of Andalucía are in mourning.”

Sanz said emergency services were fighting a “terrible and very complex fire, which is spreading very fast”.

Hundreds of firefighters and soldiers are working to contain the spread of the fire. Photograph: Carlos Barba/EPA

He said eight people had been injured – four of them seriously – and that the authorities were trying to establish whether there were any more victims of the fire, which broke out on Thursday.

According to Sanz, those who had been found dead had tried to flee despite advice recommending that people stay put or follow an official evacuation route. He added that the fire had not ultimately reached Bédar.

“Unfortunately the decision to look for another way out through a ravine was a real trap,” he said. “Four people who died in one vehicle are thought to be British as the car they were found in was right-hand drive. Seven other people who had got out of their cars and were trying to walk out on a route that wasn’t the evacuation route suffered terrible consequences. It would appear that most of them were also foreigners, but their identification has yet to be confirmed.”

Soldiers from Spain’s Military Emergency Unit at the Los Gallardos wildfire. Photograph: UME/AFP/Getty Images

The Guardia Civil urged people trying to trace missing family members to go to their station in the nearby town of La Garrucha. “The main objective is to identify the missing people and to be able to take the DNA samples in order to identify the victims as quickly as possible,” a spokesperson said.

Sanz said efforts to bring in heavy fire-fighting machinery were being hindered by limited access and “terrible” topography. He added that 120 people, mainly from Bédar, had been evacuated to a sports centre. Authorities believe the blaze may have been caused by a fallen power line.

By Friday morning, 150 firefighters were tackling the blaze and 220 soldiers from the country’s Military Emergencies Unit were being deployed to help them.

The mayor of Los Gallardos, Francisco Miguel Reyes, said people in the area had been devastated by the unprecedented fire. “This is the first time that we’ve had a fire as destructive as this,” he told Cadena Ser radio. “It looks like a bomb has gone off in our municipality.”

Extreme heat has fuelled devastating wildfires across southern Europe in recent years, the latest in a series of disasters exacerbated by climate breakdown amid a continental rollback of green policies.

In 2017, 66 people died when wildfires ravaged central parts of Portugal. Many of the dead perished in their cars as they tried to flee the flames. At least seven people died in wildfires in Spain in 2025 – a year in which a record 393,000 hectares (971,000 acres) of land was consumed by blazes.

Wildfires in central parts of Portugal caused the deaths of 66 people in 2017. Photograph: Patrícia de Melo Moreira/AFP/Getty Images

Juan Manuel Moreno Bonilla, the regional president of Andalucía, offered his condolences to all those affected by the fire, saying people were “shattered by grief”.

Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, urged people to take extra care. “We’re feeling immense sadness and desolation in the face of the terrible consequences of the fire affecting the province of Almería,” he said. “I want to convey my condolences to the families of those who died in the Los Gallardos forest fire. My wishes for a speedy recovery to the injured and my solidarity with all the affected neighbours.”

In September last year, the prime minister announced a 10-point plan to prepare the country for the climate emergency, saying: “If we don’t want to bequeath our children a Spain that’s grey from fire and flames, or a Spain that’s brown from floods, then we need a Spain that’s greener.”

He said last August’s heatwave-fuelled wildfires – which burned through an area six times the size of Ibiza and required “the biggest human and technical deployment” ever seen in Spain – showed that immediate action had be taken to mitigate the effects of the climate crisis.

Over the past five years, Sánchez added, the climate emergency had caused more than 20,000 deaths and cost the public purse €32bn (£28bn) in material losses.

Health authorities in Spain and France have said that last month’s extreme heat was responsible for more than 2,000 excess deaths in the two countries.