Montaña Alta (Spain) (AFP)

Flames 50 meters high and protected areas affected: the Spanish tourist island of Gran Canaria is ravaged by a third fire in less than ten days, which remained Monday out of control.

According to the emergency services, this forest fire, which occurred Saturday in the mountainous center of the island, has already covered 6,000 hectares and forced the evacuation of thousands of people.

The fire "is beyond our capacity for extinction," Federico Grillo, the island's chief of emergency services, told reporters on Sunday night.

The flames reached 50 meters in some places, preventing some 700 firefighters and other mobilized bodies from attacking them, even with the help of air.

"The situation is bad, very bad, we have for two days" at least, recognized Federico Grillo, evoking the high temperatures, the wind and the rains of ashes that can cause new starts of fire.

The authorities had to proceed to new evacuations in the center of this tourist island, off Morocco, with many protected areas.

A hundred people had to be "confined" in a cultural center in Artenara, a "temporary technical measure" according to the emergency services, access to the village and possible evacuation routes being too dangerous for the time being to borrow .

In total, the population of evacuated villages reached 8,000 according to emergency services who were unable to indicate the precise number of people concerned. No casualties were reported.

- Danger for protected areas -

The interior of Gran Canaria, with very diverse landscapes and micro-climates, is popular with hikers, although the bulk of tourists frequent the beaches of the island, the second busiest in the Canary Islands.

The Canary Islands last year welcomed 13.7 million tourists, especially British and German, and tourism accounted in 2017 for 35% of GDP and 40% of jobs in the archipelago according to the employer organization Exceltur.

The regional government also stressed in a statement that tourism was not affected by the fire because "no tourist complex feels the effects."

But several protected areas are affected or threatened by this fire.

It is already spread over an area classified as a biosphere reserve by UNESCO and has entered the Tamadaba Natural Park, a pine forest among the wildest areas of Gran Canaria.

The affected territory also includes the landscape of mountains and caves of Risco Caido, vestige of a pre-Hispanic civilization classified in July to the cultural heritage of Unesco.

The fire is also likely to progress to the Inagua reserve, the most biodiverse and protected area, said Federico Grillo.

Two other fires had already hit the island last week, with no injuries.

Firefighters were unable to completely extinguish the larger one, which covered 1,500 hectares, when the new fire broke out.

Spain, the world's second-largest tourist destination, is affected each summer by numerous forest fires because of its arid climate.

© 2019 AFP