Massive Wildfires Draw Close to Madrid

As the worst wildfires in Spanish history tore through the country, Elena Sánchez paused from selling beers in a kiosk on the edge of an artificial lake in Madrid and pointed west toward the sunset. It was the wrong color.

“It’s not supposed to be like that,” Ms. Sánchez, 54, said on Sunday evening, looking at a hazy gray blush — the fire’s smoky residue — in the not-so-distant distance.

As fires raged 30 miles from Madrid in recent days, an acrid burning smell imbued all of this park on Madrid’s western edge, Ms. Sánchez said. Though the situation improved over the weekend, people initially stopped exercising for the itching in their throats, she said, and older residents wore surgical masks outdoors. She could still feel the smoke on her tongue, she said.

“It’s scary,” Ms. Sánchez said. “I’m afraid it might reach here.”

In recent years, wealthy expats, immigrant workers and global attention have made Madrid a booming European capital. But as the flames on Monday reached new areas around the capital and extended to more regions around the country, a suffocating reality check has also reached the city.

In a country led by a government that has defined itself by the seriousness with which it takes climate change, the flames have come unsettlingly close to the capital. The fires around Madrid have brought to tears the region’s president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso. Experts say they are a harbinger for the damage to come on the world’s fastest warming continent.

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