A fire in the northeastern part of the island of Tenerife, in this popular tourist destination in the Canary Islands archipelago, has caused the evacuation of 3,000 people from their homes, Spanish authorities announced today.

Almost 2,400 people were forced to leave their homes as a precaution in the city of Santa Ursula and about 600 in the city of La Orotava, regional government vice president Lope Afonso said on Facebook.

“The fire has stabilized now and we are waiting to see how it develops so that we can consider in a few hours the return of residents to their homes,” explained Blanca Perez, adviser in charge of emergencies.

Images broadcast on television showed firefighting helicopters dropping water.

The island located in the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Morocco, was already hit in August by forest fires that had forced 12,000 people to leave their homes when the fires became threatening.

At the end of August, the fires reduced almost 7% of the island of Tenerife, which has a total area of ​​2,034 square kilometers, to ashes. The Spanish island has faced much more destructive fires, such as those of 2007.

The Canary Islands currently have temperatures that exceed 30 degrees Celsius.

In 2022, three million hectares were destroyed by more than 500 fires in Spain, a record tally in Europe, according to the European Forest Fire Information System (Effis).