Spanish television presenter Elena Sánchez says she felt a mix of anguish, fear, sadness and deep uncertainty when she was forced to evacuate her family’s home in Gavilanes, a village in the province of Ávila, as a wildfire described as the largest in Spain’s history swept through the Valle del Tiétar.
Sánchez, who was born in Toledo in 1979 and has worked at public broadcaster RTVE for 25 years, said residents of Gavilanes were allowed to return home on Wednesday after the flames stopped just a few kilometres short of the village boundary.
She said she arrived in Gavilanes on a Friday afternoon, already having to avoid a road that had been closed because of the fires. The following day, as smoke columns visible from the house grew thicker and the fire closed to within 3.5 kilometres at the neighbouring municipality of Mijares, the family realised their village could be in danger.
Sánchez said the feeling of packing up and leaving was unlike anything she had experienced before, describing it as the first time she had ever felt a genuine sense that a disaster could destroy her home and her village. She recalled that the worst previous fire to affect the area had been in 1986, when she was a child and the memories were very different.
She said her admiration went to everyone who put themselves on the line to save the Valle del Tiétar, including residents, volunteers and mayors who went out into the hills alongside emergency services.
Calls for prevention and institutional support
The area has suffered five fires in 40 years. Sánchez said the priority must be helping those who have lost everything and investing in recovery. She said people with expertise in the field told her the region needs stronger winter prevention work, year-round crews clearing the hillsides, firebreaks, and mixed forest systems to break up continuous woodland.
Hundreds of Valle del Tiétar residents gathered at Madrid’s Puerta del Sol on Tuesday to protest against what they described as government neglect, with calls for less privatisation and more prevention. Sánchez said it was logical for people to raise their voices, adding that residents of the valley deserved institutions that were equal to the situation.
A career built at RTVE
Away from the crisis, Sánchez has been one of TVE’s most recognisable faces for more than two decades. She said she got her first opportunity at the broadcaster at the age of 22, while still studying journalism, and recalled freezing on air during only her second live broadcast, with the silence feeling endless.
She presents and directs ‘Historia de nuestro cine’ on La 2, a programme she described as feeling like her own living room. A friend and fellow journalist, filmmaker David Trueba, once told her that the next question in an interview is always found in the previous answer, advice she said shaped her approach.
On Spanish cinema’s recent international success, Sánchez said the country’s films are authentic and have soul, that its filmmakers compensate for limited budgets with talent, and that Spanish cinema should have shed its self-doubt long ago.
Asked whether she would put her hand up for a new presenting challenge at TVE after 25 years, she said she never had and never would.
