Portugal Colonial - Five Britons among foreign Spanish wildfire victims

The blaze that broke out on Thursday has transformed picturesque rural settlements into ghost towns and left a trail of destruction in the southeastern province of Almeria, home to many foreign residents near the Mediterranean coast.

The emergency services initially recovered 12 bodies that were so badly disfigured by the flames that genetic samples were needed to identify them.

A technical body responsible for the identification work announced the nationalities of nine of those victims on Monday, including a Spanish man and his British wife.

The other victims included three Britons, three Belgians and a French woman, the experts said in a statement after three more victims were identified. Three victims remain unidentified.

The number of confirmed UK victims now stands at five, after Andalusian regional authorities said on Sunday that a 93-year-old British woman injured in the fire had died in hospital.

British, Belgian and French consular staff were helping to provide genetic profiles from relatives, "therefore the identification of all the victims may be obtained in a short period of time", the experts said.

The authorities have cautioned that the number of missing people remains uncertain until autopsies and the identification of bodies are completed.

Firefighters continue to work to extinguish the fire, which has scorched about 7,000 hectares (17,300 acres) of forest and scrubland.

Calmer winds and cooler temperatures allowed them to tame the blaze over the weekend, allowing some 1,500 evacuated residents to return home.

The leader of Andalusia's regional government, Juanma Moreno, said the wildfire was now under control, with firefighters working to completely put it out.

"Everyone is checking on the condition of their homes. Most of the houses have been saved, and I have to say that this was thanks to the enormous efforts of all the emergency crews," he added.

- 'Climate chaos' -

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez urged Spain to strengthen its prevention measures during a visit to the disaster zone on Monday.

"We must not only react when these fires happen, we must prevent" as climate change makes civil protection emergencies "increasingly frequent", Sanchez said in the municipality of Turre.

He cited better protection of municipalities and training courses for young people on how to react.

Moreno, added that citizens could respond more quickly to the sighting of smoke, the "suspicious attitudes" of possible arsonists and official warnings.

The inferno spread at up to 100 metres (330 feet) per minute at its peak last week, trapping victims in their vehicles or on foot as they tried to flee.

The authorities have spoken of the possibility that some victims did not heed warnings in time.

The authorities suspect the wildfire began when a power line broke, setting fire to vegetation that had been parched after hot weather that pushed temperatures above 40C.

Scientists say climate change caused by humans burning fossil fuels is making extreme weather events such as heatwaves, which contribute to wildfires, more likely and more intense.

"Here climate change is having a very big impact, and we are in a state of climate chaos with situations that are practically unheard of, exceptional and increasingly explosive," said Moreno.

Deadly wildfires devoured almost 400,000 hectares of land in Spain last year, the highest figure recorded for the country by the European Forest Fire Information System.

X.Brito--PC