Smoke rises above homes as raging Tenerife wildfire forces thousands to evacuate

Soldiers and firefighters were battling to control a new wildfire on Spain’s Tenerife island that has forced some 3,000 people to leave their homes for safety.

Footage shows smoke rising above buildings as the fire rages in the forest nearby on Thursday 5 October.

The blaze, which started Wednesday, is centred on the towns of Santa Ursula and La Orotava in the mountainous northeast of the island, away from the main tourist areas in Tenerife’s southwest.

The same area suffered one of the island’s worst wildfires in decades in August when 14,000 hectares of pine forest and scrubland were burnt and some 12,000 residents evacuated over several weeks.