Early this Saturday, authorities ordered the evacuation of seven municipalities in the Tiétar Valley (Ávila) due to the fire that started last Wednesday in Burgohondo and has already burned almost 15,000 hectares in the province of Ávila. Among the municipalities preventively evacuated this Saturday is Sotillo de la Adrada (Ávila), a town of 5,080 inhabitants bordering the Community of Madrid and with which the regional president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, is linked.
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Sotillo de la Adrada is her father’s birthplace, and a place where the popular leader travels during holiday seasons. This Saturday, after Ayuso held a meeting with the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, in Cenicientos (Madrid), the evacuation of Sotillo de la Adrada was decreed, and the regional president traveled there to retrieve her personal belongings, according to sources from the Madrid executive.
Ayuso left for the municipality in Ávila after the evacuation warning, which occurred just before Sánchez appeared before the media in Cenicientos, where the Advanced Command Post of the operation was located – shortly after it had to be moved from there because this town was also evacuated -.
On her X social media profile, the Madrid president published a message after learning of her town’s evacuation: “When your town or its mountain, your house, your animals burn… In hours you lose everything you love and for which you have fought your whole life.” Ayuso conveyed her “most sincere affection” to the residents of the Tiétar Valley, evacuated this Saturday morning: “To my people of Sotillo, to all those who, from this wonderful valley well into the Community of Madrid, the entire west, on the way to Robledo de Chavela, are experiencing this hell.”
The Madrid president is linked to Sotillo de la Adrada on her paternal side and, according to El Norte de Castilla, she usually spends seasons in this municipality, located 114 kilometers from Puerta del Sol, where the headquarters of the Community of Madrid government is located. In December 2024, on the eve of the Christmas holidays, Ayuso published an image on her Instagram profile from the municipality in Ávila accompanied by the comment “blessed town”.
The forest fire that started in Burgohondo currently keeps 8,000 people confined in municipalities in Ávila and another 30,000 evacuated from different parts of the province. The latest evacuations occurred this morning, in addition to Sotillo de la Adrada, in La Adrada (2,850 inhabitants), Piedralaves (2,180), Casillas (670), Santa María del Tiétar (580), Iglesuela (440) and Arenas de San Pedro (6,460).
