The hope of extinction in the La Palma fire, which remains active in the Caldera de Taburiente national park after the other two fronts have been delimited, is that the fire descends down the slope and is extinguished naturally by reach the bed of the ravine, which will act as a natural barrier. The impossibility for air resources to intervene due to the cloudiness and the difficulty for land resources due to the complex orography and steepness of the terrain lead to trust in a solution of nature itself.
This situation already occurred on Monday when the flames that were coming down one of the slopes of the park consumed themselves when they reached the Centipede ravine due to the absence of “vegetable fuel.” This was stated yesterday by the director of the national park, Ángel Palomares, who considers that it is better that the aerial means not intervene, since if seaplanes and helicopters drop water and fail to put out the fire “the days will be more in which the area will burn.” . “You have to let it reach the ravine and there it turns off,” said Palomares. According to him, he points out that the fire in La Caldera is progressing very slowly, with little impact so far.
Given the positive evolution of the fire during Monday night, due to a very slow progress, the intervention teams have chosen not to carry out backfires in the park to avoid further damage. The recently appointed general director of Natural Spaces and Biodiversity, Miguel Ángel Morcuende, who was the technical director of Pevolca and spokesman for the emergency during the eruption of the volcano, was yesterday “optimistic” with the evolution. “It has a good forecast for the next few hours,” said Morcuende, despite the fact that the weather conditions will change throughout this Wednesday. An increase in temperature of two or three degrees and a decrease in relative humidity is expected.
The dense smoke caused by the fire did lead to a worsening of air quality in five municipalities on the island: Tijarafe, Puntagorda, Los Llanos, El Paso and Tazacorte, which had to return to preventive use of a mask. The emergency service of the Government of the Canary Islands, 112, launched a series of recommendations to the population due to the concentration of suspended particles, as occurred during the volcano, in which it was also recommended to avoid prolonged stays outdoors.
The residents of the municipalities affected by the fire continued to return home yesterday. At the end of the day there were only four people left in the authorized resources, one of them waiting for the Tijarafe city council to relocate him after having lost his home in the fire. The flames have destroyed around 20 houses.
Alfonso Ballesteros is one of the people who lost his home in the fire. At 40 years old, he does not give up and assures that he will raise her again for his children, 4 and 6 years old. “I am a farmer and the farms have not been affected, so now let’s work and move on,” he says.
The Government of the Canary Islands, which held its first Governing Council on Monday after the regional elections, has already begun the procedures to ask the State for aid to cover the damage caused by the fire. The Cabildo de La Palma and the affected town halls, for their part, have begun work to assess the material damage left by the fire.
