Firefighters battle to stop Tenerife’s worst wildfires in decades

Firefighters are battling to try to bring the worst wildfire in decades on Tenerife under control.

Fernando Clavijo, regional leader of the Canary Islands, said: "The fire and the weather have behaved in a more normal fashion after showing very unusual behaviour earlier. We've managed to work more intensely during the night... preparing containment lines on the ground," he told a news conference.

The fire in the north of the Spanish Canary Island, which started late on Tuesday, has forced the evacuation or confinement of nearly 8,000 people in eight municipalities.

"The good news is that there have been no new evacuations," added Mr Clavijo. He has called the wildfire the most complex the Atlantic Ocean archipelago has faced in 40 years, due to a combination of hot, dry and windy weather, as well as difficult terrain.

Images and videos posted on social media showed the flames coming down the hill close to houses in small neighbourhoods and a massive cloud of smoke rising from the area.

The fire is located up in a pine wooded mountain area with several municipalities on its flanks, including Arafo and Candelaria to the east, and La Orotava to the west.

Army captain Rafael San Jose told Spanish National Television that some progress had been made overnight into Friday stopping the fire's spread but that rising temperatures during the day was increasing the difficulty for those fighting the blaze.

The Canary Islands have been in drought for most of the past few years, just like most of mainland Spain. The islands have recorded below-average rainfall in recent years because of changing weather patterns impacted by the climate crisis.

Mr Clavijo said the blaze, which has scorched 3,200 hectares (7,900 acres), was still very virulent but that fortunately there had been no injuries so far. He said Friday's efforts would be crucial to containing the fire. He said the combination of extreme temperatures and the fire had turned the area into a virtual oven.

The north of the island was forecast to have a maximum temperature of 30C (84F) on Friday with light winds but temperatures were set to rise further over the weekend.

The flames cover a perimetre of 40 kilometres (25 miles) encircling some 4,000 hectares (10,000 acres) of land. Nearly 300 firefighters and Spanish army soldiers are in the area, which is around 20 kilometres (12 miles) away from its main town, Santa Cruz.

Tenerife is one of Europe's main tourist destinations. Its tourism office has stressed that the most popular tourist areas are far from the fire. Business continues as usual in hotels, beaches and other tourist sites near the coast and in the midlands, the office said.

But access to the Teide National Park, one of the biggest tourist attractions in Tenerife after the beaches, was closed on Thursday evening and all tourist facilities around the Teide volcano area, including accommodation, were to be evacuated.

The seven-island archipelago is located off the north-west coast of Africa and south-west of mainland Spain.

More than 2,000 people were evacuated in a wildfire on the nearby La Palma island last month that affected some 4,500 hectares (11,000 acres).

Wildfires have burned almost 64,000 hectares (158,000 acres) in Spain in the first seven months of the year, according to Spanish government data. That's the third highest figure in the last decade.

Spain accounted for almost 40 per cent of the nearly 800,00 hectares (2 million acres) burned in the European Union in 2022, according to the European Forest Fire Information System.

Associated Press