Firefighters in Tenerife are focusing their efforts on delimiting the fire as extinguishing it proves difficult.

The fire that started last Tuesday night has so far destroyed approximately 12,800 hectares of forest area in the national park surrounding the Teide volcano, Spain’s highest peak, forcing thousands to evacuate their homes.

Efforts to extinguish it were difficult because of the terrain, which consists of steep ravines and cliffs, but also because of the heat that had preceded it and had left the pine forest dry.

“The worst is behind us,” said the regional leader of the Canary Islands Fernando Clavijo on Monday morning at Cadena SER radio station.

“Today, we will continue to work, consolidating the perimeters. We can’t talk about control yet, we’ll see if we can delineate all the fronts,” he added.

A contained fire has no active fronts that allow the fire to progress freely, although it is not under control.

Emergency services advised residents in the area around the fire, which includes the capital Santa Cruz de Tenerife, to close windows and stay indoors. He recommended they wear face masks if they need to go outside as the air quality was “very poor” due to the smoke.

Deputy Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez visited the area on Monday morning to express solidarity with those affected.
“The next few hours will be very important, let’s hope the weather will help us to consider the fire contained in the next few hours or days,” he told reporters.

The government will declare the fire-hit area a disaster zone, Sanchez added, allowing government aid to be released.

The authorities allowed it on Sunday to some of the 12,000 people of the villages of Arafo and Candelaria who were evacuated to return to their homes.

Clavijo added that the fire was almost certainly human-caused and said police were investigating to identify and arrest the arsonists.

Meanwhile, the national weather service AEMET said a new heat wave would sweep mainland Spain on Monday, further increasing the risk of fires there.

However, AEMET said there was a chance of rain in Tenerife later on Monday.

Popular tourist areas in Tenerife, part of the Canary Islands archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, have so far been unaffected and its two airports are operating normally.