A fire broke out in a Peugeot van inside El Marchante Tunnel on the A-7 above La Herradura. Luckily the driver managed to keep the vehicle moving until it cleared the tunnel.

By the time that the driver, who had no passengers on board, reached the mouth of the tunnel, the flames had taken hold of the vehicle and within moments of abandoning it, the vehicle was engulfed in flames.

Firemen from Almuñécar, together with the municipal police and the Guardia Civil were dispatched to the scene; the former to extinguish the fire and the latter two to direct the traffic.

However, despite the police presence, tailbacks were inevitable, precisely because of the protocol for dealing with vehicle fires in autovia tunnels had to be activated, which means closing the road.

Another related incident was that a fire engine sent from the Nerja end to assist with the incident overturned on a roundabout on the outskirts of Nerja. Nobody was hurt, however.

Thankfully, within an hour, normal traffic flow had been reestablished.

(News: Herradura, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)