A MASSIVE forest fire in a mountain valley above the Costa Blanca has left an entire village covered in ash and residents being given oxygen masks.
The blaze broke out in the Vall d'Ebo, in the far north of the province of Alicante, early yesterday afternoon (Thursday) in the Solana de Garrofar area close to the neighbouring valley, the Vall d'Alcalà.
Armed forces members have been sent out to help tackle the inferno and the Red Cross has been deployed in the nearest town, Pego.
The fire continues to burn out of control, and residents on the Los Verdales urbanisation have been evacuated from their villas as a precaution.
Homes on the very edge of Pego town have been affected by the flames, which have reached the stations of the cross up the hill to the chapel where the Good Friday parades take place.
Nearby Adsubia may be the next to see residents evacuated - most inhabitants are on the Les Bassetes urbanisation, and a high number of them are expatriates, including Britons.
Seven hydroplanes were drafted in yesterday afternoon, although they were unable to continue fighting the fire after night fell.
Flames spread to within half a kilometre of Pego, a town about four kilometres inland with some 10,000 inhabitants, and the sky was bright orange.
Ashes and smoke completely covered the town centre, and emergency services have had to hand out oxygen masks to residents.
The fire is now so huge that red clouds could be seen from as far away as Oliva (Valencia province).
It is not thought anyone on Monte Pego, the town's largest urbanisation mostly populated by expatriates, is at risk or has had breathing problems leading to oxygen masks being required.
Residents in Pego are heavily criticising the lack of proper facilities for putting out the fire and, when regional president Alberto Fabra visited the site of the devastation yesterday afternoon, he was jeered and booed at by the crowds.
One man threw himself onto the president and started to beat him up before he was hauled away by police.
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