After three days of uncontrollable spread of flames, firefighters continue to fight Saturday against the huge fire on the island of Tenerife, “the most complex” of the last four decades for the Spanish archipelago of the Canary Islands, and expect new complications during the day due to the heat and the wind.
On Friday, firefighting operations “have made good progress even if the fire remains uncontrollable”, said the president of the regional government of the Canaries, Fernando Clavijo, during a point Friday evening with the journalists.
The forest fire, which started Tuesday evening, burned about 5,000 hectares over a perimeter of 50 kilometers, Clavijo added.
More than 225 firefighters continue to be mobilized overnight from Friday to Saturday to fight the fire, which has already affected 10 municipalities, said Montserrat Román, head of the civil protection department of the offshore archipelago. west of Africa.
On Saturday, 19 air units will be deployed to continue operations which are likely to be complicated by high temperatures and “strong gusts of wind”, according to Ms. Román.
At midday on Friday, the authorities had noted “a favorable development” on the main front of the fire which had “behaved during the night in a more normal way”, said Ms. Román, making it possible to return to work firefighters less difficult.
“The previous two nights, we had observed quite unusual winds, temperatures and even behavior of the fire,” Clavijo said.
Although the humidity increased overnight from Thursday to Friday and the winds calmed down, allowing operations to be facilitated, meteorologists warned that the mercury would rise again during the weekend in Tenerife.
The improvement in the situation on Friday, however, made it possible to ease the confinement of the surroundings of La Esperanza, a locality located near the northern flank of the fire, where the efforts of the firefighters are concentrated.
About 4,500 people have been evacuated since the outbreak of the fire and nearly 1,700 remained confined on Friday, against 4,000 a few hours earlier, according to a report updated at midday by Ms. Román.
Camp beds have been installed by the Red Cross in a gymnasium in the town of La Orotava to accommodate the displaced, noted an AFP photographer. Outside, animals were also collected by associations.
Teide National Park, popular with tourists, has been closed since Thursday evening.
The cloud of smoke, visible on the satellite images, exceeded the summit of Teide, a volcano which overlooks the island and the highest point of Spain with its 3,715 meters of altitude, while the main foci of the fire are located on wooded hills about twenty kilometers below, near several villages.
From the sea, whole sections of the forest are hidden by thick clouds of smoke that the winds are unable to dissipate, noted an AFPTV journalist.
The island has experienced larger fires in terms of burned area, especially in 2007, but the weather conditions and topography of this one made Fernando Clavijo say on Thursday that the archipelago was facing its “most complicated fire “for 40 years.
The blaze created “its own weather conditions”, according to authorities, with a cloud of smoke several kilometers high.
The fire comes between two heat waves on the island, which has many dry areas, which increases the risk of forest fires.
Experts say extreme weather events have intensified due to global warming. Heat waves are therefore likely to be more frequent and intense, and their impact more widespread.
In 2022, 300,000 hectares were destroyed by more than 500 fires in Spain, a record in Europe, according to the European Forest Fire Information System (Effis). More than 75,000 hectares have already burned in 2023 in this country, on the front line in the face of global warming.
19/08/2023 12:24:26 – Madrid (AFP) – © 2023 AFP