Torrox forest fire near Calaceite brought under control A night fire in the hills above Calaceite near the El Penoncillo urbanisation in Torrox was brought under control by 07:30 with no victims, evacuations or damage. Residents of a coastal urbanisation outside Torrox woke in the middle of the night to the smell of smoke and the sight of fire engines, after a forest fire broke out in the hills above the Calaceite area and kept crews working until dawn. The fire was declared in the early hours of Tuesday, during the night, in scrubland to the north of Calaceite, close to the El Penoncillo urbanisation. Neighbours reported the smell of burning before midnight, and provincial consortium firefighters were dispatched alongside the Plan Infoca, the Andalusian wildfire service. By half past seven in the morning the fire was under control. There were no casualties, nobody had to be evacuated from their homes, and no material damage was reported beyond the vegetation itself. A NIGHT SHIFT IN STEEP COUNTRY The geography explains why a fire of apparently modest size required that much effort. Calaceite sits on the flank of the hills that rise behind Torrox Costa, and the ground above it climbs quickly towards the Sierra Almijara, the same range that saw a second fire near Nerja the following day. Fires that start at night in this kind of terrain are the hardest to fight safely. Slopes are invisible, access tracks are few, and the crews cannot see the fire front until they are almost on top of it. The consortium's crews worked the blaze from the ground while Infoca coordinated the wider response, and the outcome, a controlled fire with no harm to people or property, is the one every commander hopes for and does not get every time. WHY FIRES ARE STILL STARTING IN LATE OCTOBER The instinct is to think of wildfire as a summer problem. The calendar says otherwise. Almost six months without significant rain have left the scrub, grasses and gorse of the Axarquia hills as dry now as they were in August, and until the first proper autumn rains arrive, the risk does not take a season off. That is why burning permissions matter. Agricultural burning and garden waste fires are a routine part of rural life in the Axarquia, and each autumn the fire service suspends them when conditions worsen, then reinstates them after rain. Checking with the town hall before lighting anything is not bureaucracy, it is the difference between a cleared field and a night like Tuesday's. WHAT THE EL PENONCILLO FIRE SAYS ABOUT THE COASTAL BELT The fire came close enough to homes that residents noticed it before any official alert reached them. That is the uncomfortable reality of the eastern Costa del Sol, where urbanisations sit directly beneath flammable mountain country. Torrox has built a large resident community, much of it foreign, in exactly that interface zone between the coast and the hills. For homeowners and buyers in the area, the practical checklist is short. Clear dry vegetation for a margin around the property, as the prevention campaigns ask. Know the single road out of the urbanisation, and have the car pointed the right way on the high-risk nights. Keep the mobile number registered with local alert systems rather than relying on a warning reaching you through a neighbour. Torrox Costa was open as normal on Tuesday morning, the beaches unaffected, and the town's weekend programme unchanged. The hills above it were blackened in one patch and quiet, and the crews who worked through the night there had earned their sunrise. The second fire in the same range, near Nerja on Wednesday, confirmed what the fire services already knew. This autumn is not over. Anyone who saw smoke from the coast and wondered whether to leave should take one more lesson from the night. The alerts that matter now arrive by mobile, and in a part of Spain with so many foreign residents, the single most useful preparation is making sure the phone number the town hall holds is the one in your pocket.