Wildfires in Spain’s La Palma island forces evacuations as heatwave grips Europe

On Saturday, the Spanish authorities announced the evacuation of at least two thousand people after a forest fire broke out out of control on the Spanish island of La Palma, at a time when a heat wave was sweeping Europe.

Many parts of southern Spain experienced sweltering temperatures exceeding 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) last week, and higher temperatures are expected next week in Spain and throughout southern Europe, Reuters reports.

The fire started in La Palma in the early hours of Saturday morning in El Pinar de Puntagorda, a forested area in the north of the island in the Canary Islands. The fire forced the evacuation of neighboring Puntagorda and Tigaravi.

People in the village had been evacuated as the fire spread, but it was not clear how many had already left, Tijarafe mayor Marcos Lorenzo told Spanish television station RTVE.

Fernando Clavijo, the president of the Canary Islands, said at least 12 homes were destroyed as the fire intensified.

“The number of people who need to be evacuated could go up,” Clavijo told reporters in La Palma. “It depends on whether we can control these high winds.”

Authorities said the fire affected about 4,500 hectares (11,120 acres) of land.

Clavijo said the Spanish army had deployed 150 of its firefighters to help local fire crews fight the blaze and other firefighters had arrived from the neighboring island of Tenerife.

Four helicopters and four firefighting units on the ground are battling to control the blaze on the island that forms part of a Spanish archipelago off the coast of West Africa.

The wildfire is the first natural crisis on the island since a volcanic eruption in September 2021. More than 2,000 buildings were destroyed and several thousand people had to leave their homes when lava began flowing from the Cumbre Vieja volcano.

Ash covered the island for months until the eruption ended three months later.

MI