Tag Archives: Tenerife

Canary Islands wildfire is now stabilized, but firefighters remain watchful

Before-After-Tenerife

Important Takeaways:

  • Tenerife firefighters stabilize huge wildfire after nine days
  • Firefighters have stabilized a huge wildfire that has burned for 10 days on Tenerife, ravaging thousands of acres of woodland on the largest of the Canary Islands, authorities said late on Thursday.
  • There was a risk that hotspots inside the fire’s perimeter, which spread to around 90 km (56 miles), could still reignite, “especially in the central hours of the day,” the island’s emergency services said on the social platform X, formerly known as Twitter. Teams were working to contain those.
  • The fire, which started on Aug. 15, has destroyed about 15,000 hectares (37,000 acres)
  • Elsewhere in Europe, firefighters have been tackling devastating blazes in Greece, Italy and Portugal, driven by searing temperatures and dry and windy conditions…

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Fires, Drought and Extreme Heat over the Canary Islands

Tenerife Wildfire

Important Takeaways:

  • Thousands more evacuated as Tenerife fire rages on Spain’s Canary Islands
  • Canary Islands (AP) — Thousands more residents of Tenerife in Spain’s Canary Islands have fled their homes as a wildfire that authorities deemed “out of control” raged on for a fourth day.
  • The regional government for the Canary Islands said that 4,000 more people were ordered to evacuate on Saturday. Those were in addition to the 4,500 people who on Friday were forced to move out of harm’s way on the Atlantic island that is home to around a million people and is also a popular tourist destination.
  • That figure of more than 8,000 evacuees is expected to rise, and perhaps sharply.
  • The Canary Islands have been in drought for most of the past few years, just like most of mainland Spain. The islands have recorded below-average rainfall in recent years because of changing weather patterns impacted by climate change.
  • The Tenerife fire comes as Spain’s mainland is bracing for another heat wave. Spain’s state weather service issued a warning Saturday that temperatures would be on the rise in the coming days, hitting 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) in parts of the mainland.
  • Spain had a record-hot 2022 and is setting new heat records this year amid a prolonged drought that has authorities on alert for wildfires.

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Spanish rescuers search sea for missing toddler after girl found dead

By Borja Suarez and Emma Pinedo

TENERIFE, Spain (Reuters) -Spanish rescuers were searching waters off the coast of Tenerife for a one-year-old girl on Friday after a body which was reportedly confirmed to be her six-year-old sister was found weighed down in the ocean to an outpouring of rage and grief on the island.

Their father, Tomas G., is the main suspect in the disappearance of Olivia, 6, and Anna, 1, after failing to return them to their mother as agreed at the end of April. He is also missing.

Fingerprint checks have confirmed that the body found weighed down in the sea was that of Olivia, according to judicial sources cited by El Pais newspaper.

The family lived on Tenerife, where officials and a few local residents observed a minute of silence in memory of the sisters in front of the main city hall and outside other official buildings on the Canary Islands.

“All Spain is shocked, all our support for the families whose pain is absolutely unbearable and unimaginable, all our rejection of sexist violence, the vicarious violence that some still deny in our country,” Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Friday during a visit to Costa Rica.

The body of the 6-year-old, which authorities said was likely that of Olivia, was found on Thursday afternoon at a depth of 1,000 meters inside a sports bag tied to an anchor, near where her father’s boat was drifting.

Another empty sports bag was also found next to them, a court statement said.

Authorities were about to call off the maritime search earlier this week when they found personal belongings of the father at sea.

On the streets of Tenerife people mourned the girls.

“Every mother and grandmother feels the greatest sorrow, mainly for her (the girls’ mother)… It’s as if they were our own daughters or granddaughters,” said local resident Maria Victoria.

Spain’s left-wing government has put women’s rights at the top of its political agenda and sought to combat prevailing macho attitudes.

In Seville, a former boyfriend of Rocio Caiz, 17, was arrested after he allegedly confessed to killing her and cutting up her body.

Almost 1,100 women have been killed by partners or ex-partners since a register was created in 2003, shortly before a gender violence law was approved, while some 39 children have been killed during attacks on their mothers since 2013.

(Reporting by Borja Suarez in Tenerife, Emma Pinedo and Cristina Galan in Madrid; Graham Keeley writing by Emma Pinedo; Editing by Ingrid Melander and Alistair Bell)