3,000 people flee latest wildfire on Tenerife

A wildfire raging on the Spanish island of Tenerife amid unseasonably hot temperatures has forced the evacuation of around 3,000 people from their homes, local officials said.

Firefighters backed by six water-dropping helicopters are battling the blaze that broke out yesterday in an area of steep ravines in the northeast of the island that was ravaged by a huge wildfire in August, the regional government of Tenerife said.

Some 2,400 people were moved from the town of Santa Ursula, and another 600 from La Orotava, as a precaution, Lope Afonso, vice president of the regional government of Tenerife wrote on Facebook.

Television images and videos posted on social media showed smoke rising from a hill close to houses in a remote neighbourhood and helicopters dropping water on flames.

Popular tourist areas on Tenerife, part of the Canary Islands, have been unaffected and its two airports have been operating normally.

The seat of the fire “has been stabilised, we are seeing how it evolves to determine if … residents can return to their homes,” Blanca Perez, the island’s councillor in charge of emergencies, told local radio.

The outbreak of the fire comes as Tenerife and the neighbouring island of Gran Canaria are under a heat alert, with temperatures soaring above 30C across much of the island, levels normally seen during the height of summer.

The seven-island archipelago is located in the Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of Africa and southwest of mainland Spain.

At their nearest point, the islands are 100km from Morocco.

As global temperatures rise due to climate change, scientists have warned that heatwaves will become more frequent and more intense.

Source: RTE