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ES-Alert is Spain’s emergency broadcast to mobile phones: a full-screen message with a loud, continuous tone that overrides silent mode and Do Not Disturb until you acknowledge it. It needs no app, no registration, and no Spanish SIM; it reaches every handset connected to the mobile antennas in the alert zone, foreign phones on roaming included.
This guide covers the sixty seconds of setup worth doing today, what the alert looks like when it arrives, and, honestly, what the system does not do, because the July 2026 Almería fire showed that the gaps matter as much as the capability. Current as of July 2026.
The 60-second check
iPhone: Settings, then Notifications, then scroll to the very bottom. You will find a section for government alerts (labelled ES-ALERT or Emergency Alerts, depending on iOS language). The top-level civil-protection alerts are on by default and the maximum-severity class cannot be switched off; check that the optional lower tier (pre-alerts) is also enabled.
Android: Settings, then Notifications (on some models Safety and emergency), then Wireless emergency alerts. Keep every category enabled: extreme threats, severe threats, and public safety messages.
Two details worth knowing. First, the highest alert class arrives even on silent, but a phone that is switched off, in airplane mode, or out of coverage receives nothing. Second, set your phone’s system language deliberately: when authorities issue an alert with an English version attached, handsets set to a language other than Spanish display the English text. Whether an English version is attached is a choice the issuing centre makes alert by alert, so a Spanish-only alert is always possible. If a full-screen warning arrives that you cannot read, treat the fact of the alert as the message and call 112, which answers in English (see below).
What it looks and sounds like
A jarring, high-pitched tone at full volume, strong vibration, and a message that stays on screen until dismissed. If you have never heard it, it is designed to be alarming. The message states the affected area and the instruction: typically to shelter (confinamiento), move away from a specific zone, or evacuate by a named route.
Who sends it, and when it isn’t sent
Alerts are triggered by the emergency coordination centres of each region (for the Costa del Sol, the Junta de Andalucía’s centre) and by the national civil-protection centre. Andalucía has used the system operationally; press reporting counts ten activations during the winter 2025-26 floods.
It is not automatic, and the July 2026 Los Gallardos fire is the case study in its limits. No ES-Alert was sent. The Junta’s stated reasoning: instructions differed street by street (some settlements were told to shelter, others to evacuate by specific routes), and a mass broadcast to everyone in the zone risked sending some people the wrong way; separately, three mobile base stations failed during the emergency. Warnings went door to door instead, in person and in Spanish. Whatever the merits of that judgment, the practical lesson for residents is the same: the phone alert is one channel, not a guarantee. The system that failed 230 people in the 2024 Valencia floods by arriving late has since been used preventively there, and the debate about when to send it is still live.
The backup channels
- 112 answers around the clock and officially handles calls in Spanish, English, French, German, and Arabic. In 2024 the Andalucía service assisted more than 43,000 calls in other languages, over 33,000 of them in English. If in doubt during any emergency, call and ask for instructions for your address.
- The 112 Emergencias Andalucía app (App Store and Google Play) and @E112Andalucia on X carry live incident information.
- Local channels: the official warning ladder in Andalucía’s fire plan starts with police megaphones and door-to-door notice, then local radio and television. In Los Gallardos, church bells and neighbours shouting did some of the work. If a Spanish neighbor knocks on your door during a fire and points, do not stop to translate; go where they point.
Related guides
- Wildfire Emergencies in Andalucía: The Protocol in English
- Is Your House Defensible? The Costa del Sol Wildfire Checklist
- Emergency Services in Spain: An Expat’s Guide
- Summer on the Costa del Sol: The Emergency Layer, on One Page
General information, current as of July 2026. Sources: Protección Civil (proteccioncivil.es), Junta de Andalucía 112 service pages, Apple support documentation, INCIBE, and July 2026 reporting on the Almería fire. In any live emergency, instructions from 112 and emergency services override everything in this guide.
