The Wrong Way

Wildfires are cropping up all over the Europe, as a result of hot weather conditions and accompanying drought. 

A dreadful story has ensued of five members of a French family vacationing in Spain.  On Sunday night in Portbou, a Spanish town five kilometres from the French border, wildfires had forced the closing of the main highway linking Spain to France.  And traffic was diverted to a smaller road, via the town of Portbou.

The French family of five was returning from their holiday in Spain back to their home in France.  On that small road busy with other travellers who were re-routed from the main highway where the wildfires were raging, someone tossed a cigarette out a car window.  A fire began, swiftly spreading to parched woods along the road.

Officials were unable to shut the thoroughfare, and soon about 150 people abandoned their vehicles as the road was surrounded by wildfires quickly engulfing the area.  They ran from their road and their vehicles down into the rocky terrain toward a beach below.  The family of five, however, took a different route, separating from the rest of the people desperate to escape the fires.

They found themselves at the edge of a cliff, and the fire was closing in on them.  The mother first attempted to make her way down the crumbling cliff face, lost her grip and fell.  She is now in critical condition with a back injury, in hospital.  The four other members of her family had to make a decision how to proceed.

Their options were two: face the fire, or jump into the water below.  One daughter jumped; a witness said "they threw themselves off, others said they fell.  The only thing they could do was go to the water."  The father died instantly as he hit submerged rocks.  The 15-year-old daughter drowned.  A son and another daughter were rescued from the water without life-threatening injuries.

Fires in northeastern Spain have burned 90 square kilometres.  One man suffered a heart attack dousing flames around his home.  Another man died of burns.  Two other French people died as well in northeastern Spain.  Most of the tourists that arrived on the beach in Portbou suffered injuries from broken bones and burns to smoke inhalation.

Their dash down the hillsides saved their lives, but there were no well-used paths to guide them.  "The only way out was to flee and head down toward the sea", said Portbou deputy mayor Elisabet Cortaba.  "It was just bad luck that (the French family of five) went down the wrong way."