The only thing that could tame the fire on La Palma was the harmony of three elements. Any imbalance, no matter how small, between temperature, wind and humidity could translate into a lethal result for the island, which has not yet recovered from the shock of the volcano in 2021. On this Sunday, luck has turned on the side of the firefighters, the Civil Guard and the Army because there has been a balance between the thermometer and the air.
At dawn the fire began to be controlled and this Sunday morning the left flank was contained. It is true that the flames have managed to reach the Caldera de Taburiente National Park and that they have devastated more than 60 hectares but it is under control.
However, the situation is changing and the next few hours are key as there is fear of a change in the high wind.
The shock came this Sunday afternoon, when the fire was reactivated in the upper part of the municipality of Tijarafe, above the town, and land and air resources were fully used so that this reactivation did not consolidate and end up affecting the houses. Tijarafe was one of the evicted municipalities.
In parallel to the flames and their evolution, there are the residents who had to leave their homes and the feeling among the citizens of La Palma of being reliving a new natural tragedy.
“We are devastated. We are not afraid, what we have is panic”, says Geles, a neighbor of the town of Tazacorte, whose sports center has been set up to accommodate those who have had to leave their homes.
“It’s a drama, it’s a drama…”, Margarita comments on the verge of tears in a town bar. She pronounces these words aware, she assures, of the situation of several families that have had to be evicted.
“They are people who came to this part of the island because the volcano left them without houses. They came here to rebuild their lives and now it is their turn to live it all again.
The inhabitants of La Palma have been living since Saturday in a permanent wait for news. The entity of the fire and its virulence keeps the Military Emergency Unit (UME), the Civil Guard, firefighters, emergency personnel and a total of 11 air resources mobilized.
The flames were caused by human action, as sources of the investigation inform this newspaper. However, it is still to be determined if the fire was due to recklessness or, on the contrary, it was deliberately caused.
The favorable evolution of the fire has led this Sunday night to the Government of the Canary Islands to authorize the return to their homes of all the residents of the nuclei located between the route of the LP-1 highway and the coast, which are the majority of the 4,000 initially evicted, because that area includes the town of Tijarafe and almost the entire municipality of Puntagorda.
The president of the Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo, has stressed that the fire “is not controlled” and that the area above the highway is still closed, but it is expected that tonight there will be temperature and humidity conditions that will favor its extinction.
According to the latest update, the evolution of the flames that have so far affected some 4,650 hectares and burned some 20 buildings.
In addition, a total of 71 animals, both domestic and farm, remain guarded in the different resources of the island of La Palma to warn them of the fire that affected Puntagorda and Tijarafe since early Saturday morning. Work continues to contain and stabilize the fire so that, above all, it does not reach homes or advance into the natural park.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
