An estimated 26,000 people may have been forced flee a wildfire raging out of control on the Spanish holiday island of Tenerife as high temperatures and strong winds plagued efforts to tackle the massive blaze, the emergency services said Saturday.
The huge blaze, which broke out late Tuesday in a mountainous northeastern area of the island, is the biggest fire ever experienced in the Canary Islands, officials said.
โProvisional estimates suggest that more than 26,000 people may have been evacuated,โ the emergency services wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, citing census data.
In an update late on Friday, officials said some 4,500 people had been evacuated since the fire began.
But following an unexpectedly difficult night of โsevere weatherโ characterised by strong winds and higher-than-expected temperatures, the authorities ordered more evacuations.
โThe fire and the weather have changed and weโve had to evacuate five municipalities in northern Tenerife,โ said Manuel Miranda, pointing to โthe danger and the proximity of the fireโ.
In an update around 1100 GMT, Montse Roman, technical director of the emergency, warned it was โpossible that further evacuations may take place if the fire spreadsโ.
As the fire spread down the mountainside towards the northern town of La Matanza de Acentejo, Candelaria Bencomo Betancor, a farmer in her 70s, looked on in anguish.
โThe fire is close to our farm, weโve got trucks, vans, chickens, everythingโฆ itโs a business that is going well but if the fire comes, it will totally ruin us,โ she told AFPTV, on the verge of tears.
โThey have to do something because the fire is right there.โ
So far the blaze has affected 11 municipalities on Tenerife, the largest of the seven Canary Islands. By late Friday it had burnt through 5,000 hectares (more than 12,300 acres), which is nearly 2.5 percent of Tenerifeโs surface area which covers 203,400 hectares.
Canary Islands leader Fernando Clavijo said weather conditions overnight had been โsevereโฆ meaning the fire spread, mainly along the northern slopesโ.
There had been โmuch stronger winds, temperatures much higher than expected and lower relative humidityโ, he added.
โA 6th-generation Wildfireโ
Pedro Martinez, who is in charge of extinction efforts, told reporters the blaze was โbehaving like a sixth-generation wildfireโ โ a term referring to a mega forest fire.
Its perimeter had โmost certainly grown a lotโ overnight and was โdescending steadilyโ down the northern mountainside, he added.
โThe fire is beyond our capacity to extinguish it, maybe not in all sectors, but in a large part of the sectors,โ he admitted, as efforts to tackle the flames were being hampered by the huge clouds of smoke and the wind.
Maria del Pilar Rodriguez Padron, another resident of Matanza said she was sleeping in her car by the house.
โThey offered us a place to stay but we prefer to stay in the car because we can watch the house and see whether it burns or not. Being elsewhere we just wouldnโt be able to sleep,โ she told AFPTV.
Visiting the fire control centre and the affected areas, Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said all the stateโs resources were being made available to the island to tackle โthis extremely serious emergencyโ.
Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez will also visit Tenerife on Monday.
Towering pillar of smoke
The blaze has generated a vast pillar of smoke that now stretches some eight kilometres into the air, officials said, rising far above the summit of Mount Teide, the volcano that towers over the island.
At 3,715 metres (12,200 feet), Teide is Spainโs highest peak and a popular tourist destination, but all roads to the national park were closed on Thursday.
The blaze broke out after the archipelago suffered a heatwave that left many areas tinder dry.
Last year was a particularly bad year for wildfires in Europe, with Spain the worst-hit nation, suffering nearly 500 blazes that destroyed more than 300,000 hectares, according to the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS).
So far this year, EFFIS says almost 76,000 hectares have been ravaged by 340 fires in Spain, one of the European countries most vulnerable to climate change.
