Fires cause 11,000 to flee islands

MORE than 11,000 people were forced to evacuate in the Canary Islands yesterday as firefighters struggled to extinguish fires on two of the archipelago’s popular tourist islands.

About 6,000 people were evacuated from homes on Tenerife, where fires have burned 11,000 acres of forest on the western part of the island since Monday, said Paulino Rivero, the president of the Canary Islands regional government.

He described the situation as “dramatic”.