A British man whose wife and 12 friends and neighbours are feared dead in the Spanish wildfires has described how he became separated from them as flames raced towards his home. Malcolm Timbrell, 70, and his wife Annette Kilgore, 69, lived in the village of Bédar, Almeria, which was consumed by flames last Thursday evening, leaving 13 dead.
Speaking to the BBC outside his destroyed home, Timbrell said: “You’d never imagine it could happen. And when it does, and you’re the only survivor, then you’re left in a situation of, ‘What can I do?’” The couple had found their property through the Channel 4 programme “A Place in the Sun”. “She was such a happy, outgoing person,” he said of his partner of 17 years. “We have had an amazing life together — and now it’s stopped.”
The wildfire, among the deadliest in Spanish history, spread quickly due to strong winds. As flames neared their property, the couple and neighbours decided to escape by car. But Timbrell returned to the house for their cats, Charlie and Lilly. “If we’d have done the sensible thing and gone the other way and let our cats die, we both would be alive. But when you’ve got animals, you don’t think like that.”
With the cats secured, he attempted to catch up with the group but saw they were out of their vehicles. “My wife and our other seven friends and neighbours — against me screaming at them not to — decided the only safe way was to walk out in front of the firewall. I’ve subsequently heard that that fire wall was moving at 20 kilometres per hour, plus. They had no chance.”
Finding himself alone, Timbrell took refuge in abandoned cars. “Of the six cars, four of them instantly combusted and as each one started to go, I moved back one car. For some reason of fate, the last two cars, although very, very badly singed and paint bubbled and burnt, survived. And I survived inside the last one with a cat.”
After the flames passed, he was rescued by emergency workers. However, the bodies of eight people were later discovered on a path down from the house. Four scorch marks remain where vehicles burned out. Local authorities said four more victims recovered in a right-hand drive vehicle were thought to be British. Among the dead are three Britons, one French, one Belgian, and one Spanish national. A 93-year-old British woman died in hospital on Sunday.
Many British expats criticized the lack of a mobile phone alert, but Timbrell did not want to apportion blame. “It’s nobody’s fault. Nobody can be blamed for this,” he said, noting that authorities had no time to deploy seaplanes before dark and helicopters couldn’t fly due to smoke.
Timbrell and Kilgore moved to Spain after years of sailing together. Both had lost previous partners to terminal illnesses and shared a love of travel and making friends. They hoped to spend their final years in the tranquility of the Andalusian countryside. “There’s just that little spark of hope, even though I know a body has been found clutching a cat. Hard cold facts are pointing to the bodies they’ve found,” Timbrell said. He now awaits DNA confirmation, after which he fears he will “just fall apart.”
Source: www.bbc.co.uk