On September 29, 1824, Lanzarote changed its appearance again. At noon, without any preceding earthquake or other obvious sign, a great explosion announced the appearance of a new volcano in the Fire Mountains area. The earth opened up and a new phase of the island's last historical eruption began, the one that had started in Tao that year and had not yet ended.
The new volcanic edifice was named Volcán Nuevo del Fuego and was later identified as Chinero. It was located about 13 kilometers west of Tao, following a volcanic fracture with an approximate ENE-WSW direction. According to the Spanish Inventory of Places of Geological Interest, the episode lasted between September 29 and October 5 and constituted the second chapter of the triple eruption of 1824.
The explosion that lit up the island
Historical sources allow us to imagine the scene. The account preserved about that day tells that, around noon, the smoke output increased and a louder noise was heard towards the central and western part of the island. Then came a great explosion. The column of fire rose above the mountains, and its glow lit up Lanzarote.
Years later, Sabin Berthelot would capture one of the most striking images of that episode: a mass of fire emerged from the crater and rose to a great height, while the glow spread through the atmosphere made the sky take on the appearance of an aurora borealis. It was not a metaphor about the landscape, but the attempt by a witness and the first chroniclers to explain a spectacle that must have been extraordinary even for a population accustomed to living with volcanoes.
Three mouths and seven kilometers of lava
The phenomenon was not limited to an explosion. When the mayor arrived in the vicinity of the new volcano that same afternoon, he observed that incandescent stones and liquid lava were coming out of three mouths. Historical documentation preserved about the eruption indicates that the emission was even more abundant than that observed in Tao.
Current science allows for a better reconstruction of the consequences. The Geological and Mining Institute of Spain identifies El Chinero as the only manifestation of the triple eruption of 1824 considered entirely magmatic and points out that the lava flows traveled about seven kilometers before reaching the sea. The lava channel they left behind preserves distinct surface forms, including pahoehoe and aa type structures, which allow us to study how that mass of molten rock moved and cooled.
Island emergency planning records that the lavas advanced to the north and entered the sea near Teneza, without directly threatening any population center. The episode, therefore, transformed the territory without becoming a human catastrophe like those that could have been caused by a lava flow entering an inhabited area.
The second act of the 1824 eruption
El Chinero was not an isolated episode. The sequence had begun on July 31 in Tao and would continue on October 16 with the Tinguatón volcano. The three centers form the last major historical volcanic manifestation of Lanzarote. The Ministry for Ecological Transition recalls that the activity lasted until the end of October and that El Chinero is the only one of the three volcanoes in that series that is within the current limits of the Timanfaya National Park.
Historical documentation also shows that the population followed the events with concern and attention. When the first eruption of Tao occurred, the authorities of Teguise had ordered the bells to be rung, the alarm signal to be sounded, and three cannon shots to be fired from the Castillo de Santa Bárbara. Processions and trips to observe the phenomenon were also part of the collective response to a nature that was once again modifying the rules of daily life.
A new skin for Lanzarote
September 29, 1824, left more than just a new volcano. It left a new surface, new lava flows, new lava paths, and a permanent transformation of the island's geography. Where there had previously been land, vegetation, and familiar landmarks, a landscape constructed in a matter of days by fire and the cooling of rock appeared.
That is why the date can be read as the day Lanzarote changed its skin. Not because the island disappeared under an eruption like the one in 1730-1736, but because it once again demonstrated that its landscape was not definitive. El Chinero added another layer to a geological history that can still be read in the terrain and which today constitutes one of the essential values of Timanfaya.
Two hundred and two years later, that day remains transformed into landscape. The volcano that caused alarm then is now part of Lanzarote's geological heritage. Its lava flows recall that, for a few days in 1824, the island burned again, the sky lit up, and the earth wrote its own history once more.
Sources consulted
• Geological and Mining Institute of Spain (IGME), Spanish Inventory of Sites of Geological Interest, IC1015: Lava channel and erratic blocks from the 1824 eruption of El Chinero.
• UNESCO Global Geopark of Lanzarote and Chinijo Archipelago, LZ23 Lava channel of El Chinero.
• Orotava Foundation of History of Science, documentation on the 1824 eruption and transcription of Sabin Berthelot, Natural History of the Canary Islands (1839).
• Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, Timanfaya National Park, History.
Anniversary · September 29 · Lanzarote | 2
• Academy of Sciences and Engineering of Lanzarote, historical documentation on the 1824 eruptions. • Insular Emergency Plan of Lanzarote, documentation on the 1824 eruptive episode.
Add La Voz de Lanzarote as a preferred Google source.
Stay informed with the latest current news.