The quiet, sun-drenched hillside village of Bédar in Spain’s Almeria province was reduced to a charred, ash-covered wasteland last Thursday, when one of the deadliest wildfires in Spanish history swept through the community, leaving 13 people dead and a 70-year-old British expat to grapple with unfathomable loss. Malcolm Timbrell, the sole survivor of his group of friends and neighbors who tried to outrun the advancing blaze, has shared his harrowing account of the disaster that stole his wife of 17 years, Annette Kilgore, 69, and a dozen loved ones from their close-knit expat community.
Timbrell and Kilgore first fell in love with their Bédar home after appearing on the British Channel 4 property show *A Place in the Sun*, drawn to the quiet tranquility of the Andalusian countryside after years of sailing the world together. Both had previously lost their first partners to terminal illness, and built a new life centered on travel, friendship, and quiet joy. “She was such a happy, outgoing person,” Timbrell told the BBC from the scorched foundation of what was once his home. “We have had an amazing life together – and now it’s stopped.”
The disaster unfolded rapidly on Thursday, when a wind-fueled wildfire pushed by gusty winds, soaring temperatures, and months of dry vegetation exploded across the region. Timbrell, Kilgore, and their neighbors made the split-second decision to flee their hillside properties by car before the flames cut off escape routes. As the group prepared to leave, Timbrell turned back to rescue the couple’s two pet cats, Charlie and Lilly – a choice that saved his life, but separated him from the people he loved. “If we’d have done the sensible thing and gone the other way and let our cats die, we both would be alive. But when you’ve got animals, you don’t think like that,” he reflected.
By the time Timbrell had secured the cats and set off to rejoin the group, the fire had advanced too far. He watched in horror as his wife and seven other members of the group ignored his screams to stay back, deciding the only safe path was to cross the advancing fire wall on foot. “I’ve subsequently heard that that fire wall was moving at 20 kilometres per hour, plus. They had no chance,” Timbrell said.
Trapped alone, Timbrell took shelter in one of the abandoned vehicles the group had left behind. Of six cars parked in the area, four burst into flames almost immediately, forcing him to move from car to car to escape the heat. By a twist of fate, the last remaining car survived, its paint bubbled and its body singed, and Timbrell waited out the blaze inside with one of his cats. When the fire passed, emergency crews pulled him from the wreckage alive.
In the days after the fire, rescue teams recovered eight bodies on a path leading down from Timbrell’s hillside property, including Kilgore. Four additional victims, found in a right-hand drive vehicle, are confirmed to be British, bringing the total of confirmed British fatalities to three; other victims include one national each from France, Belgium, and Spain, including a 93-year-old British woman who succumbed to her injuries in hospital on Sunday. Not all remains have been formally identified, and Timbrell is currently awaiting DNA confirmation to formally confirm his wife’s death.
Many British expats in Bédar have criticized local emergency response officials for failing to issue a mandatory mobile phone alert to warn residents of the advancing blaze, but Timbrell has declined to assign blame. He noted that high winds and thick smoke grounded water-bombing aircraft, and seaplanes could not reach the area before darkness fell. With the combination of extreme heat, parched vegetation, and powerful gusts, Timbrell argues the disaster was unstoppable. “It’s nobody’s fault. Nobody can be blamed for this,” he said.
In the wake of his loss, Timbrell said he has been overwhelmed by the outpouring of support from local residents and friends of all nationalities, and praised local police for keeping him updated on the identification process. Still, he faces an uncertain future, grieving the life the couple planned to spend together in their Andalusian retreat. While he holds a tiny spark of hope that some miracle might have occurred, he acknowledged that the hard evidence points to the loss of everyone he left behind. “There’s just that little spark of hope, even though I know a body has been found clutching a cat. Hard cold facts are pointing to the bodies they’ve found,” he said. Looking ahead to the days after formal identification is complete, Timbrell said he is bracing for the full weight of his loss to hit. “So we are just waiting now for DNA clarification. And after that, I will probably just fall apart.”