Town hit by forest fire wins 468 million euros in Spain’s Christmas lottery

Spain’s Christmas lottery has been welcomed as an “injection of hope” in the country’s northwest, where the jackpot has handed out hundreds of millions of euros just months after wildfires caused devastation.

Most of the winning El Gordo lottery tickets were purchased by residents of small towns in the province of León.

A single ticket, or decimo, costing €20 (£17), is worth €400,000 (£349,484) if it bears the winning number, in this case 79432. Decimos are presented in increments of 10 and when multiple slices of the same number are sold to a group of neighbors or work colleagues, there is the potential for a huge jackpot.

Residents of the town of La Bañeza shared €468 million (£409 million).

Among the winners were members of a local football club in the town, which has a population of around 11,000.

The jackpot came four months after wildfires ravaged León, burning 8,000 hectares (31 square miles) of land surrounding La Bañeza and killing area resident, 35-year-old Abel Ramos.

Spain’s sparsely populated and heavily forested northwest is accustomed to wildfires, although in this record year the region has been particularly hard hit. Firefighters battled huge blazes in León and the neighboring region of Galicia for much of August, and over the summer 0.8 percent of the country’s total land area was burned.

According to the city’s mayor, Javier Carrera, the lottery win “means for La Bañeza an injection of enthusiasm and hope,” he told Spanish media. Carrera also discussed the closure this year of a local sugar beet factory, which led to the loss of dozens of jobs.

Villablino, another town in León province which was heavily affected by the summer’s fires, also won a massive share of the jackpot, receiving €200 million (£175 million).

“We needed some good news,” Mayor Mario Rivas said.

In addition to the fires, five local men have been killed this year in two separate mining accidents in neighboring Asturias.

“It doesn’t make up for the loss of our friends’ lives, but it shows us that there can be good news too,” Rivas said.

Most of the winning tickets in Villablino were sold by a local Alzheimer’s association.

In addition, the town of La Pola de Gordón, also located in León and with 3,000 inhabitants, shared 60 million euros. Sixty-four million euros in jackpot money were also donated to a popular district of Madrid.

In Villablino, Maribel Martín took home one of the winning decimos, worth €400,000 (£349,484). She was shopping when her son called her to tell her the good news.

“We were really down and 200 million euros is a wonderful thing,” she said.

She clearly knows what she wants to do with the prize money. “Spread it out a little and enjoy life,” she said.