The forest fire that started on Thursday in the municipality of Arico in Tenerife, entered the Barranco del Río last night but has not passed into Granadilla and the work is now focused on the left flank with the reinforcement of the seaplanes.
According to an official update by the Minister of Public Administrations, Justice and Canary Islands Government Security, Julio Pérez, it is still uncontrolled, but there is "prudent optimism" that they can stabilize it over the next few hours or early tomorrow morning (Sunday).
The wind continues to be the main enemy to control the fire, in which seven airplanes and helicopters alongside hundreds of people work. Two seaplanes are already unloading water, but the wind makes it impossible to take water from the sea, which slows down operations, so they have had to be filled at the airport.
Pérez pointed out that the weather is expected to improve on Sunday, with an estimated drop in temperatures of five degrees. "Today we are better than yesterday," he said, adding that the control of the fire is still complicated.
The fire now covers an area of 3,300 hectares, but that doesn’t mean that all the land in that area is burned, with a perimeter of 27 kilometres and they are focusing on preventing the flames from going beyond the municipal area.
The part of the fire that entered the Teide National Park during the day yesterday (Friday) has been extinguished during the night thanks to the work of the emergency services personnel who have continued during the night without any rest.
Isabel García, the Minister of the Environment of the Tenerife Cabildo, has warned of the dangerous presence of onlookers "taking photos" in areas near the Arico fire. Despite the fact that several different administrations have warned against going to areas near the Teide National Park, the truth is that some people have been ignoring them to get photos of the fire and the affected area.
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Garcia has once again asked for collaboration so that the fire can be stabilized as soon as possible, as the hundreds of firefighters, police, forestal staff, and the military continue to battle the blaze.
They are also asking people not to post pictures from previous forest fires that are not from this one and show a much worse situation than they are dealing with. As has been said before, any forest fire is very difficult to deal with, but fortunately, this one is at ground level affecting the brush, rather than in the canopy of the palm trees which spreads much quicker and is harder to get under control.
