The Corona Forestal de Tenerife Natural Park, which has been bleeding due to the fire that has devastated the island for a week, is, with 46,613 hectares, the largest protected natural area in the Canary Islands and its best pine forest mass, with a very high biodiversity of endemic species for which, until the llamas arrived, it was a magnificent refuge.
This extensive natural area is called the forest crown because it practically surrounds the El Teide National Park and is essentially a forest area dominated by pine forests and mountain vegetation.
An idea of its extension is the one that covers the municipalities of La Orotava, Adeje, Los Realejos, Vilaflor, El Tanque, Santiago del Teide, Candelaria, Icod de los Vinos, La Guancha, San Juan de Rambla, Güímar, Arico, Arafo, Guía from Isora, Granadilla, Fasnia and Garachico.
It is made up of most of the base of the volcanic structure of the Caldera de Las Cañadas and the geological building of Teide-Pico Viejo, forming a continuous ring that is located between 300 and 2,715 meters above sea level.
Within this protected space are the main samples of historical volcanism developed in Tenerife, as explained by the Government of the Canary Islands in its analysis of the nature of the islands.
The park is made up of three large ridges or volcanic ridges that converge towards the center of the island, formed during the second eruptive cycle of Tenerife and with a high number of outstanding geomorphological elements, such as ravines, pitons and recent lavas.
From it arise unique environments such as the Lunar Landscape and impressive depressions such as the Güímar valley, where singular and characteristic elements of the territory stand out such as the Las Arenas volcano and the Pedro Gil Caldera.
Part of its value lies in the large number of endemic and endangered flora and fauna species, many of which are even protected, such as the Teide blue finch (Fringilla teydea, endemic to Tenerife and animal symbol of the island). and the Canarian pine (Pinus canariensis).
It has one of the best pine forests in the entire Canary Islands, both natural and repopulated, and a magnificent representation of Tenerife’s high mountain vegetation.
At present, attempts are being made to recover the laurel forest in order to rescue the forest formation that originally conquered these spaces and there are also samples of high mountain scrub and fayal-brezal in certain enclaves.
In terms of fauna, it is worth noting several species of bats, among them the autochthonous long-eared canary (Plecotus teneriffae) or the small one (Nyctalus leisleri).
There is also a good representation of invertebrate fauna, such as the endemic beetles (Buprestis bertheloti and Brachyderes rugatus), the spider (Olios canariensis) and the night butterfly (Macaronesia fortunata).
Another fact that gives an idea of the relevance of this space is that one of the most important exploitations of this Natural Park is the extraction of water, since some 200 galleries, of the little more than a thousand that exist in Tenerife, are born inside Forest Crown.
For this reason, the Cabildo de Tenerife also points out that in this space are the headwaters of a large part of the ravines that form the drainage network of the north and south of the island and plays an outstanding role in water collection and soil conservation before erosion.
“Together it constitutes a space of exceptional beauty and landscape value,” underlines the Cabildo.
The main accesses to the Corona Forestal Natural Park are from La Esperanza, through the TF-24 (dorsal road); from Arafo, by the TF-523 (Loros Loros road); from La Orotava, by the TF-21; from Guía de Isora, by the TF-38; or from Vilaflor, by the TF-21.
All of them have been closed to traffic since at 11:36 p.m. on August 15 the first alert was given that there was a fire in the area of the mountain between Arafo and Candelaria, some flames that, a week later, are at about to be contained, but not yet controlled.
