Wildfires rage on Spanish tourist islands for third day*

AFP - Wednesday, August 1

SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE (AFP) - - Fires that forced thousands of tourists
and residents to flee their homes in Spain's Canary islands raged for a
third day Wednesday despite a huge operation to bring them under control.

Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero went to the islands off the
west African coast as hundreds of firefighters and volunteers tackled
the blazes that have devastated about 35,000 hectares (85,000 acres) of
forest and mountain scrub.

Authorities said the fires on the islands of Tenerife and Gran Canaria
had been "stabilised" though not brought under control.

About 9,000 people remained in emergency shelters after 12,000 were
ordered to evacuate on the islands, which are packed with tourists from
across Europe, authorities said.

"These fires can be called an environmental catastrophe, they are among
the worst that Spain has ever known," Lourdes Hernandez, a spokeswoman
for the WWF/Adena ecology activist group, told AFP.

Six days of fires have destroyed up to a quarter of the forests on the
two islands, added Hernandez.

Wildfires have also hit Greece and Italy in recent days amid a summer
heatwave across southern Europe that has been blamed for hundreds of deaths.

There have been record temperatures in much of the region and fires have
now been reported from Spain in the west to Bulgaria in the east.

High temperatures and strong winds fanned the flames and authorities
hoped cooler weather would aid attempts to bring the fires under control.

Around 900 people along with six water-dropping helicopters and two
planes battled one blaze in the north of Tenerife, a regional authority
spokeswoman said. The fire was no longer spreading.

Two more planes and two helicopters were to be added to the force during
the day, the spokeswoman said.

"The fire is continuing but we are hoping for a huge improvement in the
weather conditions during the course of the day, especially the wind,"
said the spokeswoman.

Another fire that has swept across part of neighbouring Gran Canaria
appeared to be under control after ravaging about 20,000 hectares
(49,000 hectares) of the island's mountainous and wooded centre, a local
government source said.

Authorities say more than one third of the forest has been damaged and
the survival of 30 wild species has been threatened.

A large number of the 5,200 people evacuated Monday in Gran Canaria were
allowed to return to their homes late Tuesday as the threat from the
flames receded.

Zapatero was to meet with the head of the regional government, Paulino
Rivero, during his visit, the prime minister's office said. Rivero said
Tuesday that the fires were the worst in the Canary islands in the past
decade.

The Canary islands welcomed about 775,000 tourists in August last year
and Spain's authorities have stressed that the fires are mainly inland,
away from the beaches that attract foreign visitors.

The Gran Canaria tourist office said it would guarantee that visitors
would have a "normal" holiday despite the fires.