The rise in temperatures and the wind have once again complicated the voracious forest fire that is ravaging Tenerife and five other population centers in the north of the island have had to be evacuated this morning. The fire has already devoured more than 5,000 hectares in 11 municipalities and has forced the eviction of 26,000 people, as estimated by the Minister of Social Welfare, Candelaria Delgado, taking into account census data.
“What worries us the most is the defense of the populations. In the North, Santa Úrsula, La Orotava, La Victoria and La Matanza”, explained to this newspaper at noon this Saturday the lieutenant colonel of the UME José Alberto Gallego, coordinator of the emergency, citing four of the towns evicted yesterday -the fifth is Tacoronte- and in which the troops of the UME have been working all morning.
“And in the west, Aguamansa, which we have been defending tonight. When we arrived, we were able to control llamas before they entered the town. Now we are defending Aguamansa and Santa Úrsula,” he added by telephone as he moved towards Arafo -in the area where originated the fire on August 15 – to hold a meeting with the Advanced Command Post in which the acting Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, the Minister of Industry, Hector Gómez, and the President of the Canary Islands, participated. Fernando Clavijo, among others.
“The South and East sectors are contained. We cannot say stabilized, but the fire is not advancing although there are pockets that we are going to extinguish with aerial means. In the North and West we have two sectors of concern, especially La Orotava, where a front of two kilometer flames”, detailed the situation at the time of our call.
“The fire is very wide, it has many kilometers of perimeter [50], on each front it behaves differently, there are adverse weather conditions, the relative humidity is very low, around 20%, the local winds push the fire up the ravine during the day and down at night”, listed the string of circumstances that are making its extinction so difficult. “The orography is very complicated. The relief means that we cannot enter some areas, that we have to attack them with aerial means,” she added.
The UME has 205 troops working on the fire, 45 heavy vehicles, three FOCA seaplanes and two others that were traveling to Tenerife from the Peninsula this Saturday. The air resources, explained the lieutenant colonel, are also having difficulties to work, especially at night, due to the immense columns of smoke that are formed and that prevent them from approaching the fire.
“We plan to continue monitoring and finishing off outbreaks in the South and East sectors. In the North sector the fire will advance very slowly downwards and we will be able to stop it. What is most worrying is the West sector because the fire can continue advancing towards the natural park. We will see how attack it, because it is difficult to act there with the ground means. The air means will overturn “, announced how they will act during the next hours the person in charge of the UME, who highlights the good coordination between all the troops that try to put out the fire. “The emergency management is organizing the troops and is making the decisions to evacuate and confine. The important thing is that there is no home or affected population. The main effort is that the fire does not reach the homes.”
Lieutenant Colonel José Alberto Gallego is not optimistic regarding a prompt extinction. “There is time left for us to consider it stabilized, he has days left because he is going to continue advancing towards the West, where it is inaccessible.”
