Biblical disaster in Tenerife. About 26,000 people have had to be evacuated from their homes as a huge fire on the Spanish tourist island continues to rage since Tuesday, rescue services said today.

“According to provisional estimates, more than 26,000 people have been evacuated,” rescue services said in a post on the X (formerly Twitter) platform.

The fire, which broke out in a mountainous area of ​​the north-eastern part of the island, spread during yesterday (Friday) night due to the particularly difficult weather conditions, with strong winds and temperatures higher than expected.

“It is the most complicated” of the last four decades for the Canary archipelago, according to the authorities.

The authorities had spoken yesterday, Friday evening, for about 4,500 people who had been displaced from their homes after the fire broke out. But in the morning, five other municipalities were evacuated in this zone.

The head of the forest services, Pedro Martinez, told reporters on Saturday at noon that the perimeter of the fire “almost certainly increased a lot” overnight and that it is “steadily coming down” the mountain in the Santa Ursula region (northeast).