Water bombers fight Spain wildfires

Thousands of people fled wildfires raging Sunday on the Spanish Canary islands, where a World Heritage site remains under threat, while rain helped douse a fire in Greece near another protected site. Elderly villagers in Spain spent the night in hotels and student halls after thousands of people fled wildfires on the Atlantic islands of La Gomera and Tenerife. Sending up plumes of black smoke, the fires have forced the evacuation of more than 4,700 people in the past two days, the regional government said. Apolonia Garcia Castaneda, an 83-year-old mother of 10 who was evacuated overnight on La Gomera, said she had to leave behind her chickens, sheep and crops as well as her dog. "I haven't been able to sleep. I rested a bit, but the fear doesn't go easily," she said. Her village of Los Loros is near the Garajonay nature reserve, a UNESCO World Heritage site that is home to rare subtropical forests in the centre of the island. The flames had charred more than 500 hectares (1,200 acres) since they revived on Friday after devastating 3,000 hectares earlier in the week, authorities said. Flames on Tenerife have spread over some 370 hectares, the regional head of the Canary Islands emergency services Juan Manuel Santana told a news conference Sunday.  He warned that high temperatures and low humidity on Sunday made it harder to control the blaze. "It is going to be a difficult day for everyone, most of all for those fighting the fire," he said. "We are still on alert for high temperatures on the archipelago, and that makes the extinction work more difficult," emergency services spokeswoman Lourdes Jorge told AFP as water bombers dousedflames on the wooded hillsides. The maximum temperature on the islands was forecast to reach 39 degrees Celsius (102 degrees Fahrenheit) on Sunday after a sweltering week across Spain. In Vallehermoso, about 150 people who had fled nearby villages overnight spent the night in hotels and student accommodation, an AFP photographer there said. Many others were housed by friends and relatives. "Most of the people we've taken in are over 65 or children," said Maria Dolores Arteaga Amaro, a local social worker in charge of looking after the evacuees. "Most require regular medication, so a volunteer nurse has worked around the clock taking care of them." Spain is at particularly high risk of fires this summer after suffering its driest winter in 70 years, and blazes have broken out in various parts of the country in recent days. On the mainland, officials in the northwestern Galicia region said that among a series of wildfires there, the biggest one had ravaged 1,200 hectares and remained out of control on Sunday morning. Among other fires reported, one erupted Saturday in the northern Gers region bordering France, one in the Cabaneros national park in central Spain and another near the Donana park in Andalucia in the south. Meanwhile in Greece, rainfall overnight helped hundreds of firefighters to bring a blaze under control near the remote Mount Athos, another World Heritage site housing the world's oldest monastic community in northeastern Greece. The region houses some 20 Eastern Orthodox monasteries which are self-governing and date back more than 1,000 years to Byzantine times. The rain "has saved us", said Ana Aristos Kasmiroglou, a state representative for the monastic community. The blaze, which may have been the result of arson or negligence, destroyed 1,500 hectares of forest and consumed olive trees and vines.