Fellow Brit Peter Chapman was with his wife Shelagh at their holiday home in Mojacar, a short drive from Los Gallardos, on Thursday.

When he first noticed the sky darkening, Chapman thought a storm was coming. "Then there was that smell of smoke in the air," he told the BBC.

"You could see a glow in the sky in the distance. The only way I can describe it is by thinking of how my mother used to describe the London bombings during the Second World War. It was surreal."

The couple stayed at the property but woke on Friday morning to ash and smoke in the air.

On a local Facebook forum, Chapman said people were asking others for information on potentially missing people. "It's just terrible," he added.

Peter Rowlinson, who lives in Los Gallardos, praised the efforts of authorities in controlling the fire but said the experience had been "very frightening".

He is now staying at a relative's house. "We left last night, the smoke was horrendous. We had to get out. The house is still there but there is ash everywhere," he told the BBC.

Rowlinson lamented that "hundreds" of people had been displaced, adding that many locals had offered spare rooms, bars and restaurants. "There's a real sense of community in the whole area," he said.

Andrew Mills, who is semi-retired and moved to Spain five years ago, said wildfires were common during summer months.

But this fire was different, he said, adding that "within two hours that whole set of mountains was alight, they just had no chance of stopping it".

Some of those who were able to escape or avoid the flames have also paid a high personal cost.

Los Gallardos resident Jose Antonio Flores watched as flames engulfed the land he had tended for decades.

"It rips your soul out," he told Reuters news agency. Pointing to his son, he said: "I raised him there, where the fire is. I had 600 orange trees."

Throughout the day on Friday, hundreds of firefighters, military and law enforcement personnel, and 30 aircraft, continued responding to the blaze.

"This is the first time we've faced a fire as devastating as this," Los Gallardos mayor Francisco Miguel Reyes told Spanish radio station Cadena SER, adding that "it feels like a bomb has fallen" on the area.

"When I think about how everything was before the fire started and see how it is now, it's breathtaking."