“people are very nervousgo down the street with the animals, horses, dogs, everything…”. Nuhacet, a 40-year-old nurse, is one of the thousands of people who yesterday had to be evacuated from their homes due to the fire that is raging in Tenerife. The evicted already amount to more than 12.000as estimated yesterday by the Minister of Social Welfare, candelaria delgador, based on the censuses of the 11 municipalities who are already affected.
The scene of the neighbors trying to save their animals that Nuhacet describes occurred yesterday afternoon in the center of the orotavawhere she and her husband Domingo, 44, also a nurse, have been welcomed by a relative. The couple’s two children Ehedey11 years old, and Tayry, eight, have moved with Nuhacet’s father, who lives on the other side of the island. “The two cats are at my sister’s house, a big dog, at a friend’s house in Tacoronte, hoping they don’t evict her too, and the fish and the turtle took the children away,” she tells how they have also relocated to family animals.
The rise in temperatures and the wind once again complicated the voracious fire this Saturday, which has a perimeter of 70 kilometershas devoured more than 8,000 hectares and continue advancing west. “I live between Barroso and Cañeño, which belong to the municipality of Water Meek and we already had the fire quite close”, explains Nuhacet. “We live in a group of three houses that is quite isolated. No one came up to tell us anything. We found out in the morning because they put the evacuation notice online and because we realized that The light had gone out“.
Given the proximity of the fire, his family and the other three people who reside in the neighboring houses decided to leave. Most of the evacuees, like Nuhacet, have moved to the homes of relatives or friends. In the four shelters set up by Red Cross on Saturday morning they only had 239 personas hosted. “Mainly people who are alone, foreigners who are temporary residents and who do not have direct family support and people who have not been able to contact family or friends because they are on vacation,” he explained. jose reyesone of the coordinators of the device deployed by the Red Cross, who announced that they had conditioned another six enclosures -pavilions and soccer fields- due to the increase in the evicted.
“In the morning we did not see a helicopter or anything and they told us that the dams did not have water for the planes. Until a while ago we have not seen them again. They have said that they are going to prioritize keep people safe and that the rest is not a priority,” continues Nuhacet, recounting how they woke up on Saturday in Aguamansa. “We did not see the flames but when the wind came it was super hot, we had everything andthe patio full of ashes and you couldn’t even breathe. The flames were not, but above the mountains we saw everything red and pieces of pine, fern were falling at home…”.