‘The breath just went out of us’: people return to their homes after wildfires near Madrid

Residents struggle to take in the devastation five days after El Morro was evacuated as fires burned across the countryside west of the Spanish capital

The handwritten sign taped to the front gate of a house in the mountains an hour west of Madrid offered as succinct a summary of recent events as you will find.

“EMPTY,” it said. “No people or animals here.”