Residents struggle to take in the devastation five days after El Morro was evacuated as fires burned across the countryside west of the Spanish capital
The handwritten sign taped to the front gate of a house in the mountains an hour west of Madrid offered as succinct a summary of recent events as you will find.
“EMPTY,” it said. “No people or animals here.”
The quiet streets of El Morro, a hamlet on the outskirts of the town of Navas del Rey, held further evidence: two burnt-out cars barely identifiable as an Audi and a Seat; blackened gnomes atop a gatepost; charred hedges whose leaves had crumbled to a fine ash; and, everywhere, the smell of burnt, or still smouldering, wood.
On Wednesday, almost a week after the area was one of many evacuated as firefighters rushed to contain the blazes that have consumed tens of thousands of hectares of land west of the Spanish capital, the returning residents of El Morro were trying to process what had happened. Some phoned their insurance companies, some swept up the debris in and around their homes, and some were still too deep in shock.
