Los Campeches, in the municipality of Los Realejos, was once again the area where a Forest fire yesterday at 10:20 am, which, after arriving in San Juan de la Rambla, will play La Guancha this morning.
The affected area is the Campeches-Tigaiga-Ruiz area, which has an orography in the form of a depression, of ravines, with a certain flow of air and this helped to fan some flames that “moved rapidly to the west” generating complications on the right flank due to the fact that there are many “ravines and abandoned farms” that have allowed the flames to “feed easily”, recognized Montserrat Román, head of the Civil Protection and Emergency Attention Service of the Government of the Canary Islands.
The Cabildo de Tenerife, which was initially in charge of the extinction work, requested its promotion to Level 2 for the intervention of the media and coordination of the Government of the Canary Islands. Some 250 forestry brigade members from Tenerife, La Palma and La Gomera, the UME and ten aerial means, nine helicopters and the Air Tractor plane were mobilized. Members of the UME and Cabildo brigades also traveled from Gran Canaria.
The fight against the fire was focused on two fronts and covered some 110 hectares of scrubland, in a complicated area with a lot of fuel. Estimates indicate that in the next few hours the temperature will drop a little, but, with low humidity, good weather conditions are not expected until tonight.
A hundred troops on the ground worked last night with the mission that, in the event of a possible change in the direction of the wind, they can channel the fire and prevent it from descending to lower levels. Drones with thermal imaging cameras will also be deployed to help better fix the five-kilometre perimeter. When it dawns, the aerial means will intervene again.
The president of the Canary Islands, Ángel Víctor Torres, stated that the fire “is not controlled” because the temperature “is high and the humidity is low”, with the advantage that the wind does not blow with great intensity. “The night is key to contain the advance of the fire” until the aerial means are reactivated, he said, and he hoped to “take advantage” of the weather conditions of today and tomorrow to control the flames before temperatures rise again on Sunday. .
The president of the Cabildo, Pedro Martín, stressed that “efficiency will prevail over protocols and bureaucracy”, given that the regional media are immediately available. “We still cannot know what the origin of the fire is, but it does not surprise us that it could be intentional,” he lamented. “I ask for collaboration to prevent an unscrupulous person from causing a serious problem these days of high temperatures.”
