Spain on Wednesday authorised residents to return home to all the towns evacuated due to a wildfire in the province of Avila, west of Madrid, the interior ministry said.
“The end of the evacuation is ended, with immediate effect, for all the localities that were in that situation in the province of Avila,” the ministry said in a statement, listing 12 towns that had remained under the measure.
Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said the coming hours would be “decisive” in the battle to extinguish the other major wildfire nearby, in the Madrid region.
“Today I believe we are closer to that final objective” of “defeating the fire”, Sanchez told reporters in televised comments at a command centre in the town of Navalcarnero at 1000 GMT.
“Things are progressing favourably, with the greatest of caution,” he added.
“I believe the next 12 hours will be very important — they will be decisive for consolidating the work that has been done” by firefighters.
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Emergency services have been working since last week to put out the blaze in the Madrid region and another in neighbouring Avila province which officials said was the worst in Spain’s recent history.
The fire had forced the evacuation of tens of thousands of people. AFP reporters spoke to residents who came back on Tuesday to find their homes destroyed.
The government on Tuesday authorised people in more than a dozen municipalities in the Madrid region and Avila to return home.
On Wednesday it announced the same measure for all the remaining Avila towns and two more in the Madrid region.
The central government delegate for the Madrid region, Francisco Martin, told reporters that 24,000 people there had returned under Tuesday’s measures and a further 1,500 would be able to after Wednesday’s announcement.
He said 9,500 people remained evacuated in the Madrid region.
The wildfires have burned nearly 80,000 hectares (200,000 acres) overall, according to authorities.
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