The fire on the island of La Palma has been stabilized this Wednesday within its perimeter after more than four days of flames that have finally devastated 2,900 hectares, 200 of them within the Caldera de Taburiente National Park. In the next few hours, work will continue to achieve its extinction.
Currently, there are 14 points still active within the burned area that continue to burn, although there is no risk of the fire reactivating and leaving the perimeter. “The water discharges will continue to turn off those 14 points as soon as possible,” said the Minister of the Presidency, Justice and Security of the Government of the Canary Islands, Nieves Lady Barreto. Despite this, as the firefighting teams have warned, during the next month “smoke may continue to come out” in different areas of La Caldera.
“We can see a pine that is burning from the inside and from which smoke comes out without there being a fire,” said Barreto, who has highlighted the work of all those who have intervened in the extinction work, including the neighbors who tried in the first place to contain a fire that started at dawn in a container in a recreational area. “It’s been epic,” he said.
The coordinator of the Eirif of the Government of the Canary Islands, Miguel Ángel Martín, has highlighted the “role that the weather has played” in controlling this fire. Without the low temperatures that have occurred, the fire could have destroyed up to 20,000 hectares, according to his estimates. “Several control lines were prepared to prevent it from going through Cumbre Vieja to Puntallana, which would have been terrible damage on an island with a lot of forest mass,” he stated. “The conditions were favorable. This, together with the rapid intervention, prevented further damage ”, he concluded.
The guide of the La Caldera de Taburiente National Park, Jonás Rodríguez, has been convinced that the recovery of the forest areas that have been affected by the fire will be “quick” since, although it has been a fire that has generated a lot of smoke, it has been surface. The hope is that it rains soon and in a calm way so that the affected pine specimens can regrow in three.
The fire has finally affected 60 properties (25 in Puntagorda and 35 in Tijarafe, of which 9 are homes) and now the damage is being assessed to request aid from the Government of Spain. Given the control of the fire yesterday, the evacuations that still affected two neighborhoods in the northwest of the island of La Palma (La Hacienda del Cura and El Jesús) came to an end. Some neighbors found upon arrival that although it had not burned, they did not have water or electricity. The fire destroyed power lines and pipes, which will have to be replaced in the coming days.
