SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, Spain (Reuters) – Firefighters have “stabilised” a wildfire that ravaged 400 hectares of woodland in the centre of the Spanish island of Gran Canaria, local emergency services chief Federico Grillo said on Thursday.
Authorities declared the wildfire stable at 0.42 a.m. local time (2342 GMT) after it had forced the evacuation of hundreds of villagers from their homes as well as dozens of children from a camping site near a mountain top.
Three roads were closed off while emergency services deployed nine aircraft and 250 firefighters to contain the blaze.
“Unfortunately, a house has burned down on Pico de las Nieves,” Grillo said on messaging platform X, formerly known as Twitter. No injuries were reported.
Since Wednesday, authorities had allowed residents to return to their homes to check for possible damage and care for their pets, accompanied by security officers.
Earlier in July, 4,000 people were evacuated from their homes on the island of La Palma, near Gran Canaria, as a forest fire burned out of control while countries across Europe have struggled to cope with wildfires amidst a heatwave.
(Reporting by Corina Pons; Editing by David Latona and Sharon Singleton)
