Spanish town recently hit by fire wins 468 million euros in Christmas lottery

(Patria) - Spain's Christmas lottery has been welcomed as an "injection of hope" in the northwest of the country, just months after fires caused devastation, the BBC reported.

Most of the winning tickets in the lottery, known as El Gordo, were bought by people in small towns in the province of León.

One ticket, or décimo, which costs 20 euros, is worth 400,000 euros if it carries the winning number, in this case 79432. Décimos come in strips of ten and when many strips of the same number are sold to a group of neighbours or colleagues, there is the potential for a huge jackpot.

People in the town of La Bañeza, which has about 11,000 inhabitants, shared 468 million euros.
Among the winners were members of the local football club.

The jackpot came four months after wildfires ravaged León, burning 8,000 hectares of land around La Bañeza and killing a local resident, 35-year-old Abel Ramos.

The sparsely populated, densely forested northwest of Spain is accustomed to wildfires, although during this record year the area was particularly hard hit. Firefighters battled huge fires in León and the neighbouring region of Galicia for most of August, and 0.8 percent of the total land area burned during the summer.

According to the mayor, Javier Carrera, the lottery win "means an injection of excitement and hope for La Bañeza," he told the Spanish media. Carrera also mentioned the closure of a local sugar beet factory this year, which caused the loss of dozens of jobs.

Another town in the province of León that was hard hit by summer fires, Villablino, also took a huge chunk of the jackpot, winning 200 million euros.

"We needed some good news," said Mayor Mario Rivas.

In addition to the fires, five local men died this year in two separate mining accidents in nearby Asturias.

"This does not compensate for the loss of life of our friends, but it shows us that there can be good news," Rivas said.

Most of the winning tickets in Villablino were sold by the local Alzheimer's association.
In addition, the town of La Pola de Gordón, also in León and with 3,000 inhabitants, shared 60 million euros. Sixty-four million euros of the jackpot also went to a working-class neighbourhood in Madrid.

In Villablino, Maribel Martín had one of the winning décimos, worth 400,000 euros. She was grocery shopping when her son called to tell her the good news.

"We were really in a bad way, and 200 million euros is a wonderful thing," she said.

She made it clear what she wanted to do with the prize money.

"Share it around and enjoy life a little," she said.