The rise in temperatures and the wind have once again complicated the voracious forest fire that is ravaging Tenerife and five other population centers in the north of the island have had to be evacuated this morning. He fuego has already eaten more than 5,000 hectares of 11 municipalities and has forced the eviction of some 6,000,000 people.
“What worries us the most is the defense of the populations. In the North, Santa Úrsula, La Orotava, La Victoria and La Matanza,” UME lieutenant colonel J explained to this newspaper at noon this Saturday.ose alberto gallegomilitary coordinator of the emergency, citing four of the towns evicted yesterday -the fifth is Tacoronte- and in which the troops of the UME have been working all morning.
“And in the west, Aguamansa, which we have been defending tonight. When we arrived, we were able to control llamas before they entered the town. Now we are defending Aguamansa and Santa Úrsula,” he added by telephone as he moved towards Arafo -in the area where the fire originated on August 15- to hold a meeting with the Advanced Command Post in which the acting Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, the Minister of Industry, Hector Gómez, and the president of Canary IslandsFernando Clavijo, among others.
“The South and East sectors are contained. We cannot say stabilized, but the fire is not advancing although there are pockets that we are going to extinguish with aerial means. In the North and West we have two sectors of concern, especially La Orotava, where it is advancing a two kilometer flame front“, detailed the situation at the time of our call.
“The fire is very wide, it has many kilometers of perimeter [50]on each front it has a different behavior, there are Adverse weather conditions, the relative humidity is very low, around 20%, the local winds push the fire up the ravine during the day and down at night,” he listed the string of circumstances that are making its extinction so difficult. “The orography is very complicated . The relief means that we cannot enter some areas, that we have to attack them with aerial means, “she added.