A small rock in the Atlantic: 02/08/09

La Cancelita Viewpoint

The view of Los Llanos from La Cancelita

La Palma has even more glorious viewpoints then the other Canary Islands. One of my favourites is La Cancelita, where you get two amazing views for the price of one. The good view covers Los Llanos and a good chunk of the surrounding plain. (Los Llanos means 'the plains' but it's not that flat by UK standards.
La Cancelita Viewpoint, Los Llanos, La Palma, Canary Islands

The view of the Caldera de Taburiente from La Cancelita

And the fantastic view sweeps down across the Caldera de Taburiente. All right, so you get fantastic views of the Caldera from almost anywhere around its rim, and from an awful lot of the Caldera floor, too. But this ones very accessible -- just a short drive from Los Llanos.
Follow the brown signs for the Caldera, and then take Calle Cancelita. You'll need to park when you run out of tarmac, and then walk along the dirt track for about five minutes. Believe me, it's worth it.

La Cancelita Viewpoint, Los Llanos, La Palma, Canary Islands

La Cancelita viewpoint

Labels: La Palma, Los Llanos, miradores, viewpoints

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Fiestas in Las Nieves and El Paso

Inside Las Nieves Church

Today is the fiesta of the patron saint of La Palma, the Virgin of Las Nieves. It's also a public holiday for the whole island.

Las Nieves is about 2 km inland from Santa Cruz de la Palma. When I went this morning, it was impossible to park within a mile of the fiesta. Sorry, I just turned around and went home. I expect it's much like other years - lots of stalls selling food and drink and souvenirs, and a religious procession at some point in the day.

Meanwhile, El Paso has it's once-every-three-years fiesta going on for most of the month. They have things going on all month, but the main event is the romería on Sunday 16th. This is a cross between a religious procession and a party, where they take the statue of the Virgin on the Pine from the hermitage of the same name, to the church in the town. Romerías are usually great fun, with people taking along instruments to sing folk songs on the way, and wagons handing out free food and drink - usually friend pork and wine.

Labels: El Paso, fiestas, La Palma, Las Nieves, Santa Cruz de la Palma

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The La Palma Fire from Space

NASA image of the La Palma fire on Sunday

I was going to have a break from blogging for a couple of days, but I couldn't resist this photo, taken from a NASA satellite on Sunday August 2nd. The island downwind of La Palma is La Gomera, 50 km away.

I think it must have been early on Sunday afternoon: the fire in the west is out, and the clouds are just about to arrive.

It looked spectacular from underneath, but not as spectacular as this.

Labels: fire, La Palma, NASA, satellite photo

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Yippee! The Fire's Under Control

The island government has just announced that the fire's under control.

"Under control" isn't quite the same as "out". It means the mountainside is still smouldering, and they have to put out the embers before the wind gets up. But with this weather, it really ought to be ok.

And apologies of you tried to access this site yesterday evening. The domain providers in the USA had a power cut which took out all their servers. As you can see, it's all up and running again.

Labels: fire, fuencaliente, La Palma, Mazo

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The Damage in Fuencaliente

Burnt House in Fuencaliente, La Palma

My first impression of Los Canarios, the main village in Fuencaliente, is that it's a heck of a lot better than I expected. The fire damage is very fluky, presumably because the fire moved so fast and the gusts of wind kept changing direction. As you can see, sometimes a house got burnt out completely, and its neighbours untouched, or the top floor burned, and the bottom floor looks fine, or one half of a semi-detached looks totalled, and the other half looks OK.

Burnt House in Fuencaliente, La Palma

Most of the badly damaged buildings I saw had people working in them already. Presumably the owners have already gone through swearing and crying, and they're already getting on with it. I was impressed.

The Princess Hotel, La Palma

From a distance at least, the Princess Hotel looks fine and dandy. Most buildings look OK, and most shops are open. And the beautiful old church is fine.

A car repair workshop, Los Canarios, Fuencaliente, La Palma

A car repair workshop, Los Canarios, Fuencaliente, La Palma

Car workshop, Los Canarios, Fuencaliente

I don't think this car workshop will bother to fix the cars outside it now. On the other hand, I was amazed to see this small survivor just outside the big petrol station.

A lizard that somehow survived

Labels: fire, fuencaliente, La Palma

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La Palma's still burning

Helicopter dropping water on the fire on La Palma

Helicopter dropping water on the fire at Tigalate, on La Palma

The fire on La Palma is still burning, but it's a lot smaller, and a lot farther up the mountain and away from houses. Hopefully, now that all the helicopters and both planes are dumping water on the same place, it'll be sorted out soon.

Smouldering forest, Mazo, La Palma

Meanwhile there are acres and acres of smouldering forest, and people trying to get the fire completely out.

Mop up operatons in Fuencaliente, La Palma

Mop up operatons in Fuencaliente, La Palma

Mop up operations in Fuencaliente, La Palma

Labels: fire, fuencaliente, La Palma, Mazo

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UPdate: It's still not out

I've just caught the local news. They was no mention of the fire on the west side, and I'm really hoping that no news is good news. The fire on the east side is still burning, still near Tigalate, but they hope to have it under control this morning. Certainly the weather's much better, and if all 500 fire fighters are working on one fire, it should really help.

The footage of Fuencaliente was really depressing They say "at least 80" houses have been destroyed.

I'll try to find out more.

Labels: fire, La Palma

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Here in Breña Baja, it's now 25ºC with a light breeze and the sky is cloudy. It's hard to be sure, but it looks like all cloud and little or no smoke. The local TV channels are showing soap operas again, instead of continuous news.

I just saw the two amphibious planes leaving the airport, and they seemed to be heading over the ridge towards the west of the island.

So I can't be sure, but I think the fire this side is controlled.

And my friend the other side of the island says she isn't sure what's happening either, but there's a heck of a lot less smoke than yesterday.

So there's a real chance the nightmare is almost over.

Labels: fire, La Palma

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The eastern fire just north of Tigalate, La Palma

The fire on the east of La Palma has almost gone around in a circle. I took these pictures just north of Tigalate.

The second one shows one of the amphibious planes from Seville in action. I believe they hold 4,500 litres of water at one go.

Amphibious fire-fighting plane at Tigalate, La Palma

I have no more news from the west of the island, but when I went to Tigalate, the temperature was 32ªc and gust of a stiff breeze. This isn't good weather for fire-fighting, but it's miles better than yesterday's 40ºC and gust of up to 70 km/h.
Map of the fire on La Palma

Labels: fire, La Palma, Mazo

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Another Update on the Fire on La Palma

Hallelujah, the wind's dropped! The temperatures have dropped too, although it's still hot.

We now have 500 firemen fighting this fire, but the losses are mounting. Up to 2,000 hectares -- including 90% of Fuencaliente -- and a dozen houses have burnt. Worse, a man from Fuencaliente has died of a heart attack.

One of the three fires is out.

The second, in the east side of the island moved slowly north. They had it controlled, but the wind got up and it broke out again. Now it's almost back where it started, at Tigalate. At least it headed towards the coast and away from the houses.

And the big one, on the west, headed towards El Paso - (the municipality, not the town). As far as I can gather, they're using hte lava flows as fire breaks, and it's still near Santa Cecilia.

The fire at Icod on Tenerife is "controlled". The fire at Valle Gran Rey on La Gomera is out, after burning 24 hectares.

Labels: fire, La Palma

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Photos of the fire

All photos by Nikki Batley

And we now have a fire-fighting unit from Seville come to help. We need them. The "controlled" part of the fire on the east side of the island has apparently revived, and more people have been evacuated from Montes de la Luna.
The fire in Fuencaliente