Thousands evacuated as wildfires hit Spanish tourist island

Authorities on the Spanish tourist island of Tenerife evacuated some 3,000 people from their homes overnight as a wildfire sparked by high temperatures and strong winds raged in a forested area already ravaged by fire in August. Emergency services said on Thursday on X, formerly known as Twitter, they had requested assistance from the army’s Military Emergency Unit, citing the blaze, which ignited on Wednesday, as a high level emergency. Soldiers and firefighters battled to control the fire which broke in the northeast of the island, away from the main tourist areas in the southwest. The same area suffered one of the island’s worst wildfire in decades which burned for days, destroying some 15,000 hectares (37,000 acres) of woodland within the national park surrounding the Mount Teide volcano, Spain’s highest peak. Thousands were also evacuated then, with most returning to their homes. The Canary Islands regional leader, Fernando Clavijo, told a business event in Madrid on Thursday the August fire had been brought under control but never completely extinguished, with embers still burning in the forest. He said firefighting efforts overnight had “gone well”. “There is less fuel (for the fire), so it shouldn’t get out of hand,” Clavijo said, referring to the already scorched terrain. The island, in the Atlantic off Africa’s northwestern coast, is on alert for high temperatures that are expected to reach 39 degrees Celsius (102.2 degrees Fahrenheit) throughout Thursday. Read More Spanish police reopen investigation into death of British mother in Tenerife 2023 is on track to be the hottest year ever recorded September sizzled to records and was so much warmer than average scientists call it 'mind-blowing'