La Palma has another forest fire, just south of Mazo. La Gomera has a forest fire burning the national park at Garajoney. Animals have been burnt alive and people have been evacuated (although I don’t think anyone’s lost their home yet.)
Update on the fire
70 people have been evacuated from La Sabina, as a precaution. As of 9 pm last night, the fire had burned 847 hectares, but the weather forecast for Sunday is cooler temperatures which should help. Much of the fire is in the area which burned in 2009, which at least means there’s considerably less fuel to feed it. A Military Emergency Unit has arrived from Tenerife with an extra 65…
Curiosity Landing on Mars
Curiosity, also known as the Mars Science Laboratory, will touch down on Mars at 6:31 (BST or La Palma local time). I hope it won’t crash into Mars hard enough to create a new impact crater. Mars is currently on the opposite side of the sun to Earth, and radio signals from Mars take 14 minutes to reach Earth. That’s far too long for the engineers at NASA to…
Fire in Mazo
[UPDATE 11 PM: People will soon be able to go back to their houses in Tigalate and Tiguerote, but the authorities are planning the evacuation of Montes de Luna.] We have another fire, in Mazo, near La Sabina. One front is burning uphill, pushed by 35 km/h winds. The other is heading for Fuencaliente. About 70 people have been evacuated from the villages of Tigalate and Tiguerote. The road is…
Lizards on La Palma
The local lizards (Gallotia galloti palmae) are fond on watermelon on a hot day. Figures. Unlike most lizards, they eat quite a lot of plants, especially ripe fruit, to the point where they can become a nuisance in vinyards. I recently discovered that we only have one species of small lizard here. What I thought were two species is one, with different colours for males and females. The one in…
And another!
Abyss and Apex magazine are buying “Rose Petals, Lavender and Glitter”. I don’t know when it’ll be published, but I’ve been trying to sell them something for years, so I’m well chuffed.