Madrid. More than 26,000 people had to be evacuated due to the uncontrolled progress of a fire on the tourist Spanish island of Tenerife, the Security and Emergency services reported on Saturday.
“According to provisional calculations obtained from the census, the number of people evacuated could exceed 26,000” in the north of the island, the largest in the Canary Islands located off the northwestern coast of Africa, said the Canary Islands Emergency Service.
“Those who need accommodation are referred to the different authorized shelters,” he added on the X social network, formerly known as Twitter.
In an update late on Friday, authorities had reported that some 4,500 people had been evacuated since the start of the fire, which broke out Tuesday night.
But the flames continued to spread due to strong winds and higher than expected temperatures, forcing the evacuation of five additional municipalities in the north of the island.
Shortly before 11 a.m. (GMT), the authorities said at a press conference that they had no immediate information on the number of people evacuated.
Montse Román, technical director of emergencies, assured that the figures were still being collated, but warned of possible “new evacuations” in case the fire advanced.
Pedro Martínez, director of the extinction work, told reporters that the perimeter of the fire had “grown a lot” during the night and that in the northern area of Santa Úrsula, the front continued to advance “continuously.”
“They are very deep ravines where we cannot penetrate with land means and where air means have not been able to discharge due to the accumulation of smoke,” he said.
