Devastation ravages Spain in the worst wave of wildfires of the century: "Everything was hell."

Environment Editorial, August 19 (EFE).- The worst wave of forest fires in Spain this century is leaving a devastating landscape: hundreds of thousands of hectares burned, many of them of enormous environmental value, nearly 34,000 people evacuated from their homes, and homes destroyed. "Everything was like hell," residents say.

With the flames of many megafires considered sixth-generation, the one already classified as the most serious fire in Spanish history since records began, reaching up to 4,000 hectares per hour, firefighting teams and police had time to evacuate thousands of residents, but were unable to save some of their homes.

The village of San Vicente, in Vilamartín de Valdeorras (Ourense, in the region of Galicia), was devastated by flames, and one of the villagers told EFE, devastated, that she felt like she was "dying" when she saw how her house had been reduced to ashes.

"It was a huge house on the ground floor," says the woman, who laments that where her home used to be "there's nothing left."

That's why she hasn't gotten out of bed for three days. "I felt like dying seeing her like that," she confesses, standing before what remains of what was once her home, where she was born and where her parents, grandparents, and even great-great-grandparents also lived.

Now, all these questions are: "Am I going to rebuild it? With what? Will they give it back to me the way it was?" Another neighbor has managed to save the house, but wonders what the point is. "To traumatize me further?" he muses.

And he believes that now the vehicle that brought him the fish or meat won't arrive, and he has no water or electricity, although he has a generator that a relative brought him.

"This whole area was a living hell," says Vanesa, a resident of the parish of Bendollo, in Quiroga, also in Galicia, after a night in which the fire threatened this town for hours, where, she says, they found themselves "completely alone" and without the help of professional firefighting equipment.

Volunteers from outside the area were able to contain the flames and prevent homes from burning and causing further damage, at the cost of a long night after which "some people still haven't slept."

In the north and center of the country, such as the regions of Galicia and Castile and León, fires have consumed entire villages, and many people only had time to flee with the clothes on their backs.

This is what happened in Mantinos, Villalba, and Fresno del Río (Palencia): a bag of clothes, medication, and the uncertainty of not knowing what will be left standing when they return: "We never thought we'd have to leave our house because of a forest fire. We left with only the clothes we were wearing," said neighbors during one of the express evacuations this Sunday.

In minutes, and in the midst of a scorching heat wave, summer became an exodus to a sports center, transformed into a makeshift shelter where uncertainty coexists with solidarity among folding beds, water bottles, fans, and volunteers.

“It was all very chaotic,” Manuel, a resident of Villalba, told EFE. “We had something prepared just in case, but when they tell you to leave your house, it's a real blow. What you really want is to stay and help, but they don't let you. And you leave feeling scared, helpless, not knowing what's going to happen to your family,” he says. Beside her, Pilar remembers the first thing she packed in her bag: "The medication. Then some clothes. But you're left with nothing; you don't know what to take."

“The worst thing is the helplessness of seeing the fire so close and not being able to do anything. They evacuate you, and you think about your home. And about the people who have livestock, the animals, and those who stayed behind with their tractors to try to stop the flames,” explains another evacuated neighbor.

"No one thinks that one day they might have to run away because the fire is approaching their town," Monse Juanes, a Red Cross psychologist, told EFE. "At first, many were anxious, even in shock, but today the atmosphere is calmer because of better news. The hardest thing is accepting that your home, your life, could be in danger."