Hundreds of firefighters, supported by helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft, battled Saturday to contain one of Spain's deadliest wildfires in recent years, which has killed at least 12 people.

Authorities said lighter winds and higher humidity have improved firefighting conditions, but the blaze's massive scale continues to hamper containment efforts. Antonio Sanz, head of Andalusia's emergency services, said the fire has already scorched about 66 square kilometers (25 square miles) of forest and farmland, an area roughly the size of Manhattan.

Fire crews carried out controlled burns overnight along the fire's perimeter in an effort to slow its advance, Sanz said. The blaze erupted late Thursday in a semi-arid area near the Sierra de los Filabres mountains in Almeria province during an intense heat wave across Spain.

Authorities said most of the victims, believed to be foreign nationals, died after disregarding shelter-in-place orders. Seven people were killed after abandoning their vehicles and attempting to escape on foot.

Regional authorities said four of the victims are believed to have been British because the burned-out vehicle they were traveling in had the steering wheel on the right side, a feature typical of vehicles registered in the United Kingdom.

Sanz said Saturday that authorities had completed autopsies and collected DNA samples to help identify the victims.

Spain's Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares has spoken with his counterparts in the U.K., Belgium, Canada and the Netherlands about the fire, Spain's official EFE news agency reported. Almeria is home to one of the largest communities of foreign nationals in Andalusia.

Authorities evacuated 1,448 people from 11 areas.

Jeffrey and Christine Kember were watching one of their favorite television shows in their Los Pinos farmhouse when the blare of a siren alerted them to the fire.

Jeffrey Kember said that when they saw the advancing flames, he and his wife jumped into separate cars while trying to help a neighbor with two toddlers.

He described how the couple became separated and how he was unable to contact his wife because she did not have a phone with her.

"I'm driving through the flames. It was actually flames. I thought, 'I can't stop, I just gotta go,'" Jeffrey Kember told The Associated Press, with his wife standing beside him outside an evacuation center.

"It was eerie because all of a sudden I came out of the flames and it was all bright sunshine. It was surreal. Ridiculous!"

Meanwhile, Spanish authorities arrested two people for ignoring evacuation orders and returning to a high-risk area, according to EFE. Authorities were still searching the Bedar area for additional victims.

Spain has battled frequent and severe heat waves in recent years, with temperatures often exceeding 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit). Strong winds, high temperatures and a lack of rainfall help small wildfires grow into major blazes.

Justice Minister Felix Bolaños on Saturday attributed the ferocity of the Almeria wildfire to a "climate emergency." He said the fire, at its most intense, advanced as fast as 100 meters (328 feet) per minute.

Spain's Meteorological Agency warned that the wildfire risk over the weekend would remain very high.

In June, Spain experienced several days of record-setting heat, with more than 1,000 excess deaths.

Europe is the world's fastest-warming continent, with temperatures increasing twice as fast as the global average since the 1980s, according to the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service.

Parts of Western Europe are facing their third heat wave in six weeks. Globally, 2025 was the third-hottest year on record, bringing several intense heat waves across Europe.

Several wildfires remained active across France on Saturday as temperatures soared. Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said 32 people have been arrested across the country since the beginning of the summer in connection with wildfires.

"Those unacceptable acts, which have disastrous consequences and mobilize our firefighters at the risk of their lives, now fall into the hands of the justice system," he said. "We will continue our determined action and will not let anything slide."

French President Emmanuel Macron also weighed in, recalling in a post on X that nine out of 10 wildfires start because of human activity. More than 25,000 hectares (62,000 acres) of land have burned in France since the start of 2026, roughly double the area burned during the same period last year.

France is experiencing the peak of its third heat wave this summer, with temperatures reaching 40 degrees Celsius across western and central parts of the country and around 37 degrees Celsius (98 degrees Fahrenheit) in Paris. In the French capital, the Eiffel Tower will close in the afternoon over the weekend instead of late at night, as it usually does. The Louvre Museum and the Musee d'Orsay have also announced reduced opening hours because of the heat wave.

Last month was France's hottest June on record, with deaths surging by nearly a third during the hottest week.

Wildfires are common in Spain, with last year's fire season burning more than 393,000 hectares (971,000 acres), according to the European Forest Fire Information System, an area about twice the size of London. Four people died.

Spain's deadliest wildfire occurred in 1979, when 21 people died in Lloret de Mar, a coastal town about an hour north of Barcelona.

In 2017, a wildfire in neighboring Portugal killed 66 people in Pedrogao Grande, about 200 kilometers (120 miles) northeast of Lisbon. In that blaze, 47 people died on a single road while attempting to flee in their cars.