Twelve people have died in a forest fire in Andalusia, southern Spain. The fire broke out near Almería on Thursday afternoon, the regional government said on Friday night, citing rescue workers. Some of the victims were found dead in their car.

Spain, like Portugal and France, is currently suffering from intense heat. The highest heat alert level has been in effect in parts of the country for days. The dry weather and high temperatures encourage fires to break out.

The fire brigade has also battled several serious fires in France and Portugal in recent days. Both forest fires In France, around 7,800 hectares of vegetation had already burned down in eight days at the beginning of the month – significantly more than in the whole of July last year. This emerges from the European database on forest fires (Effis).