2023-08-21 12:27:50
A glimmer of hope after almost a week of struggle. Firefighters managed to protect houses from the fire that has been raging for several days in Tenerife on Sunday, the air quality of this tourist island of the Canaries being now largely affected due to the smoke generated by the blaze.
The fire, which broke out on Tuesday evening in a mountainous region in the northeast of the island, has already devoured 12,813 hectares over a perimeter of 90 km, or about 6% of the island’s surface area, and forced more than 13,000 people to flee, according to the regional daily ” the province “. It has become the largest known to the archipelago located off the west coast of Africa.
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Towards an improvement of the situation?
Despite forecasts of a difficult night with wind and rising temperatures, things went “much better than expected”said the president of the Canary Islands regional government, Fernando Clavijo, on Sunday morning. “It is true that the night started very difficult with many calls saying that the fire was very close to the houses”he told reporters.
But the firefighters “worked very intensively” and managed not to lose any homes in the blaze, he added, which is “almost a miracle”. Montserrat Román, head of the archipelago’s civil protection department, confirmed on Sunday morning that“there were no evacuations or confinements” during the night.
“These fires put us face to face with the irreversible”
According to the daily the day ”, members of the Emergency Military Unit, the Canary Islands Government and BRIF Wildfire Response and Reinforcement Teams worked overnight in the Teide National Park area to contain the spread of flames. On Sunday, local authorities had to evacuate the luxury Parador hotel, located in the heart of the park.
A total of 610 people fought the blaze on Sunday, and came to the aid of the victims, in addition to the 20 air units which were trying to put out the fire. According to the emergency services, some 1.5 million liters of water were dropped by air units on the flames on Saturday during 930 sorties.
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According to “la Provincia”, the authorities must decide in the morning if the inhabitants of the municipality of La Esperanza can return to their homes.
The fire visible in satellite images
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez is expected on the island on Monday. So far, the fire has affected 11 municipalities in Tenerife, the largest of the seven Canary Islands.
According to the emergency services, the air quality is affected in most of the island “due to the smoke generated by the fire”. According to “el Dia”, she remains “unfavourable” in 19 municipalities in the south and north of the island.
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The head of the forest services, Pedro Martinez, spoke of an inferno on Saturday “behaving like a sixth generation forest fire”, in reference to its size. According to him, the efforts of the firefighters are hampered by the immense clouds of smoke and the wind.
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Visible on satellite images, a large cloud of smoke eight kilometers high has indeed emerged from the flames. The latter even exceeds the summit of Teide, the highest point in Spain, which overlooks the island with its 3,715 meters of altitude.
Images can save lives!
On #WorldPhotographyDaywe’re sharing a snapshot from @CopernicusEMS. Such images provide information to help policymakers and public authorities develop environmental policies and take critical decisions.
????Wildfire in Tenerife, Spain (17/08/2023) pic.twitter.com/I7j8wfd6Bs— EU_ScienceHub (@EU_ScienceHub) August 19, 2023
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In 2022, 300,000 hectares were destroyed by more than 500 fires in Spain, a record in Europe, according to the European Forest Fire Information System (Effis). Nearly 76,000 hectares have already burned in 2023 in this country, on the front line in the face of global warming. Since the beginning of the current year, Spain has recorded 340 fires which have ravaged nearly 76,000 hectares, according to figures from Effis.
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