The fire that ravaged Spain cannot be put out: tens of thousands of people left their homes
The forest fire that ravaged the island of Tenerife, one of Spain’s Canary archipelago, continues unabated. Strong winds and high temperatures facilitated the spread of the huge fire that broke out on Tuesday night, forcing a total of 26,000 people to flee their homes.
“The fire exceeds our ability to extinguish, perhaps not in all areas, but in a large part,” said Pedros Martínez, head of firefighting operations.
Martinez said firefighters had difficulties on the ground due to the wind and large plumes of smoke.
Fernando Clavijo, president of the Government of the Canary Islands, told the media that the especially strong winds, the air temperature much higher than expected and the low humidity facilitated the spread of the fire mainly on the northern flank.
Many people were evacuated in the fire.
Some 4,500 people have been evacuated since the fire broke out. According to the estimates of the emergency services, this number increased yesterday to 26 thousand.
“The conditions of the fire and the weather changed and we had to evacuate five settlements in the north of Tenerife,” said the head of the local emergency services, Manuel Miranda, who alerted the X Red of “the danger and imminence of the fire.”
These new evacuations came after forecasters warned that temperatures would rise again in Tenerife over the weekend, complicating the work of firefighters on the ground.
5 thousand hectares of burned area
The forest fire, which destroyed an area of 5,000 hectares over an approximate area of 50 kilometers, covers approximately 2.5 percent of the 203,400 island hectares of Tenerife.
The fire generated a large column of smoke eight kilometers high, which can also be seen on satellite images, over the Teide volcano, the highest point in Spain at 3,715 meters.
This wildfire broke out between two heat waves on the island, which has many dry areas and increases the risk of wildfires.
According to experts, extreme weather events have intensified as a result of global warming. As a result, more frequent and intense heat waves and more widespread effects can be expected.
The island has been the scene of larger fires, especially in terms of the area burned in 2007.
But the weather conditions and the topography of the island led Fernando Clavijo to say on Thursday that the archipelago is facing the “most complex” fire in the last 40 years.
According to the European Forest Fire Information System (Effis), in 2022 more than 500 fires in Spain destroyed 300,000 hectares of forest area. This was recorded as a European record.
In Spain, which is one of the countries most exposed to global warming, approximately 76,000 hectares of forest have already burned in 2023.