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Sunday, August 12, 2012

2500 evacuated due to the forest fires on La Gomera

By last night more than 2500 people had been evacuated from various villages on the island of La Gomera as fires were raging out of control despite the efforts of several
helicopters and 2 hydro-planes, as well as hundreds of firefighters on the ground.

Today the situation is  unchanged and the touristic town of Valle Gran Rey remains cut off due to road closures, but local excursion boats are ferrying people by
sea to the capital of San Sebastion.
There are still several active fronts blazing, some of them in the forest of the National Park. The weather conditions keep fanning the fires and there is a red alert for extremely high temperature and low humidity for the rest of the day.
More firefighters and another hydro-plane are expected to arrive later.

Edit 13:20h:
I've just been informed that the Valle Gran Rey municipal tourist office located at the taxi rank in La Calera (near town hall) will be open all day today and acts as an information centre for tourists and evacuees. They have all the information, are very helpful and they do speak English.

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