Fire on Guaza mountain leaves thousands without mobile phone service in south Tenerife

A fire last night (Sunday) on Montaña de Guaza, which overlooks Los Cristianos in the south of Tenerife, completely devastated a building housing radio, digital television, and telecommunications transmitters installed on the mountain, as well as a large part of its tower and several antennas, which firefighters battled to save.

The damage was so significant that companies like Vodafone had their mobile phone services interrupted leaving thousands without service in this part of the island, in addition to other telecommunications and radio stations.

To allow firefighters to work without risk, the power supply at the site was cut off, forcing radio stations to use generators to avoid interrupting their broadcasts until the fire was safely extinguished and the extent of the damage could be assessed.

On March 13th, just over a month ago, another fire occurred in Montaña de Guaza, at a different transmitter centre which, like this one, badly affected telecommunications. The police are treating both incidents as arson believing the fires were started intentionally.