At least 2,000 people were evacuated due to a wildfire that is currently out of control on the Spanish island of La Palma in the Canary Islands archipelago on Saturday, Reuters reports, as Europe is in the midst of a heat wave.
This fire broke out early in the morning in El Pinar de Puntagorda, a wooded area in the north of the island, forcing the evacuation of this town and its neighbor Tijarafe.
Marcos Lorenzo, the latter’s mayor, told Spanish broadcaster RTVE that the town’s residents had been evacuated as the fire spread, but it was not possible to know how many of them had actually left the premises.
“The number of people to evacuate could increase. It depends on our ability to control these strong winds,” said Fernando Clavijo, president of the Canary Islands.
According to the authorities, around 4,500 hectares of land were affected by the fire and at least twelve houses were destroyed by the flames.
Heat wave
“New gusts of wind are expected and, combined with the dryness of the terrain and the lack of rain, the situation is complicated,” admitted Fernando Clavijo in statements collected by The Guardian.
For this reason, the Spanish army has deployed 150 of its firefighters to help the local teams and others have also arrived from the neighboring island of Tenerife. Four helicopters and four ground firefighting units are trying to control the flames.
The mayor of Puntagorda, Vicente Rodríguez, told RTVE that the area has experienced below-average rainfall in recent years, due to climate change.
Many parts of southern Spain, including the Canary Islands, experienced scorching temperatures of over 40°C last week and another heat wave is expected between Monday and Wednesday. In 2022, nearly 500 fires devoured more than 300,000 hectares in the country, a record in Europe, according to the European Forest Fire Information System (Effis).
Source: BFM TV
