2,500 evacuated in La Palma wildfire in Spain’s Canary Islands; official says blaze ‘out of control’
- Officials warned residents the situation could worsen because the current heatwave in northern Europe has made the terrain tinder-dry
- ‘The fire is out of control,’ said Canary Islands regional president Fernando Clavijo, appealing for people to heed the calls for evacuation
More than 2,500 people were evacuated as a wildfire rages “out of control” on La Palma in Spain’s Canary Islands on Saturday, destroying around a dozen homes, authorities said.
The fire has affected an area of about 4,500 hectares (11,000 acres) and officials warned residents that the situation could worsen because a heatwave has made the terrain tinder-dry.
“The fire has spread very fast,” Canary Islands regional president Fernando Clavijo said. “The fire is out of control.”
Clavijo said some residents did not want to abandon their homes, and he appealed for people to be responsible and heed the calls for evacuation.
He blamed “the wind, the climate conditions as well as the heatwave that we are living through” for the swift spread of the blaze.
Clavijo said that he was very concerned about the possibility of shifting winds at night, saying they could make the evacuation operation more dangerous. He said that 10 aircraft were battling the fire, and that water-dropping planes were expected to arrive.
The wildfire and evacuations come nearly two years after a three-month volcanic eruption caused devastation on La Palma. While nobody was killed, around 3,000 buildings were buried along with many banana plantations, roads and irrigation systems.
The fire is on the western side of La Palma on wooded, hilly terrain dotted with homes. It is not an area that was directly impacted by the 2021 volcanic eruption.
Puntagorda’s mayor, Vicente Rodríguez, told Spanish public broadcaster RTVE that the fire started inside the limits of his municipality. He added that the area has seen below-average rainfall in recent years, just like large parts of the drought-stricken mainland, because of changing weather patterns impacted by climate change.
So far this year, it has lost another 66,000 hectares to fire, according to the latest EFFIS data.
La Palma, with a population of 85,000, is one of eight members of Spain’s Canary Islands archipelago off Africa’s western coast. At their nearest point, the islands are 100km (60 miles) from Morocco.
Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse
