Ricardo Melchior, president of the the Island Government, representing the Island Corporation, and the mayors of the ten districts affected by the forest fires, held talks this morning to discuss the current situation and the measures to be adopted both in the short and medium term.  All those concerned have agreed that the people of Tenerife and those directly affected by the blaze,  should be made aware of the following:

- the forest fires which broke out on 30 July on the island were from the start extremely unusual. If would be difficult to find any previous similar situation to that which took place in just seven hours whereby a forest fire was able to spread to a perimeter of 78kms yet the flames were put out in only 48 hours.

- the intensity of the flames and the intermittent gusts of variable high winds in the early hours, facilitated the fire spreading in several directions in a short period of time.  We are waiting for a full report but it could well be that in tenerife there have never beenweather conditions like the ones which occurred on the 30 and 31July with temperatures of over 40 ºC  coupled with extremely low relative humidity plus very strong winds in the middle and higher ground on the northern slopes of Tenerife.

- Everthing points to these abnormal environmental conditions being of great assitance to whoever deliberately took advantage of the situation to start the fire. The culprit was well aware of the circumstances. From now on it will be vital to encourage citizens to collaborate with the investigation and help to identify the culprit (s) responsible for this criminal act which has caused so much pain and damage to everyone involved.

- Given the circumstances outlined above, it was only due to the excellent collaboration of everyone who was directly implicated and the coordinated actions of the different institutions involved in fighting the blaze which meant that all the available teams and equipment were working in unison with one goal in mind: to prevent the fire from spreading and preventing any risk to human lives, to the general population and the hundreds of people fighting the fire.

- For this reason, we the public insititutions hereby recognise and value above all else the good example of civility and solidarity displayed by all our fellow citizens. We are deeply grateful to a large number of different private companies for their kind support.

- We also recognise and value the generous dedication of all the members of the different forces, brigades, institutions and groups. All without exception diplayed their professionalism and a true spirit of sacrifice at a time of particular tension and gravity.

- From today there will be a swift, coordinated effort to ensure that the people affected receive public compensation funds to try to ease as far as possible any losses and damage to property and personal goods caused by the blaze.

- Additionally, we would like to request that the general public whenever possible should refrain from travelling to the affected areas over the next five days to make easier the task of keeping the fires under control and cooling down the ground. We also remind people to step up precuations to help us to prevent any further ourbreaks of fire especially in the event of there being further critical weather conditions over the next few weeks.