Families race to retrieve belongings from their homes and escape the advancing lava on Tuesday, as sirens sounded and helicopters flew overhead in air filled with smoke from an erupting volcano on the Spanish island of La Palma.
Drone footage showed the lava flowing westwards to the coast in three huge tongues, incinerating everything in their path, including a school.
The largest flow was advancing towards a banana plantation and water reservoir as it crept closer to the main street of the town of La Laguna, travelling at about 200 metres an hour, authorities said.
Lorena, a 42-year-old Laguna resident, raced to salvage furniture and electrical appliances from her parents' home.
"We are nervous, we are taking out the most essential things like mattresses, the fridge," she told Reuters, with her family's possessions strewn around the back yard.
The town was evacuated on Monday but emergency workers gave residents a two-hour window to return home and save whatever they could.
Nearly a third of the population in the affected areas work in the banana plantation industry, a producers' association said.
One family of three in the town of Los Llanos de Aridane, which lies in the possible path of the molten rock, hurried to load a Toyota van with mattresses, a fridge, washing machine and bags stuffed with clothes.
Residents in Los Llanos de Aridane were given one hour to pack up and flee, a scene played out over La Palma in the Canary Islands since the volcano erupted on Sunday, forcing 6,000 people to evacuate. At least 166 houses have been destroyed so far.
Regional leader Angel Victor Torres said emergency services were powerless to stop the lava's "inexorable" advance to the sea and that more homes, churches and agricultural land would be consumed.
While the total damage remains hard to predict, he said it would far exceed the 400-million-euro threshold needed to qualify for European Union aid.