Around 26,000 people had to be evacuated because a major fire had been raging on the Spanish tourist island of Tenerife since Tuesday evening, as the emergency services announced on Saturday.
• Also read: Flames remain out of control in Tenerife: new evacuations
• Also read: Fire in Tenerife: Beginning of “normalization”, almost 4,000 hectares burned
• Also read: Spain: Canary Islands face ‘most complicated’ fire in 40 years
“Preliminary estimates assume that more than 26,000 people have been evacuated,” wrote the emergency services on the social network X (ex-Twitter).
The fire, which broke out in a mountainous part of the north-east of the island, spread from Friday to Saturday overnight due to particularly difficult weather conditions with strong winds and higher than expected temperatures.
According to the authorities, it is “the most complex” of the last four decades for the Canary archipelago.
Authorities reported on Friday evening that around 4,500 people have been evacuated since the fire broke out. But as of Saturday morning, five new communities in the area were being evacuated.
Forest Service chief Pedro Martínez told reporters Saturday noon that the scope of the fire “almost certainly increased a lot” overnight and was “steadily sliding down the mountain” in the Santa Ursula area (northeast).