2023-08-18 14:21:55
After 48 hours of “out of control” and unpredictable spread, the fire ravaging the island of Tenerife, in the Spanish archipelago of the Canaries, began to “normalize” this Friday, authorities announced. This forest fire, which started on Tuesday evening, burned around 3,800 ha over a perimeter of 42 km, according to the latest report from the authorities.
More than 250 firefighters, 16 aircraft, but also more than 200 members of the Special Military Unit of the Ministry of Defense (UME) are mobilized. The island has experienced larger fires in terms of burned area, especially in 2007, but the weather conditions and topography of this one made Fernando Clavijo, the president of the Canary Islands regional government, say on Thursday that the archipelago was dealing with its “most complicated” fire in 40 years.
However, the fire has not yet been stabilized and the authorities will study in the afternoon the possibility of lifting the confinement of La Esperanza, a locality located near the northern flank of the fire, where the efforts of the firefighters are concentrated. About 3,000 people have been evacuated and nearly 4,000 confined since the outbreak of the flames, while the Teide National Park, very popular with tourists, has been closed since Thursday evening.
More favorable weather conditions
This “normalization” is partly due to more favorable weather. “Last night, the fire and the weather behaved normally. The two previous nights, we had observed rather unusual winds, temperatures and even behavior of the fire, ”welcomed Fernando Clavijo on Friday morning during a press conference.
“We recovered some humidity in the air on Thursday evening, but we know that from today it will drop again”, in particular due to a rise in temperatures, said the meteorologist Vicky Palma during the press conference.
VIDEO. The island of Gran Canaria ravaged by a fire
If the intensity of the flames decreased during the night, the head of the forest services, Pedro Martínez, warned that in the hottest hours, the hearths could “reactivate” and that the fire remained active on “almost all” of its perimeter.
The cloud of smoke, visible several kilometers high in satellite images, passed the summit of Teide, a volcano which overlooks the island and the highest point in Spain with its 3,715 m altitude, while the main foci of the fire are located on wooded hills about twenty kilometers below, near several villages.
#Fire #Tenerife #start #normalization #hectares #burned