Over 5,000 people were evacuated over the weekend as strong winds fanned wildfires in Spain’s Canary Islands, prompting governments to issue travel warnings. A fire on La Gomera Island forced the evacuation of around 1,000 tourists and residents by ferry and is threatening to decimate Garajonay National Park, a UNESCO world heritage site that contains woodlands that have survived for over 11 million years. “We are living through hell, we have asked the central government for more resources with which to fight the fire,” Casimimo Curbelo, a local government leader of La Gomera, told the . A dry winter and extremely hot summer have the islands hard, where about five million tourists visit every year.
Via