The fire on Tenerife is out of control, around 26,000 people have been forced to flee the fire on the Spanish island, rescue services said, quoted by France Press.
“Provisional estimates are that the evacuees are over 26,000,” said a message on the Ex social network posted by the emergency services.
The fire spread even more that night due to particularly difficult weather conditions. Stronger winds and warmer night-time temperatures have seen the huge wildfire raging out of control in Tenerife spread, prompting more residents to flee their homes in the northern sector of the Spanish holiday island.
The massive fire that broke out late Tuesday in a mountainous northeastern region of the island is the “most complex fire” to hit Spain’s Atlantic Canary Islands in more than 40 years, authorities said, cited by AFP. “The fire is beyond our ability to put it out, maybe not in all sectors, but in a large part of the sectors,” said Pedro Martinez, who is in charge of extinguishing the flames. He said efforts to deal with the flames were hampered by the huge clouds of smoke. and the wind.
“The weather conditions last night were severe … which means that the fire spread mainly on the northern slopes,” Canary Islands chief Fernando Clavijo told reporters, citing among factors in the disaster “much stronger winds, much higher temperatures than expected and lower relative humidity’.
By Friday evening, the fire had forced more than 4,500 people to flee, although there was no update on how many people were affected by the early morning evacuations in five municipalities. “The fire and the weather changed and we had to evacuate five municipalities in the north of Tenerife,” said Manuel Miranda, head of the islands’ emergency service at X, the former social network Twitter. He pointed to “the danger and proximity of the fire.”
The latest evacuations came as forecasters warned that high temperatures and strong gusts of wind over the weekend would complicate efforts to tackle the blaze. The fire, which has a perimeter of 50 kilometers, has so far destroyed 5,000 hectares of land. 225 firefighters are fighting it. The area of the fire is equivalent to nearly 2.5% of the area of Tenerife, which extends over 203,400 hectares.
Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlasca was due to visit the fire control center on Saturday along with Tourism Minister Hector Gomez, while Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is due to arrive on Monday, officials said. /BGNES
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2023-08-19 18:37:00
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