Around 150 people backed by nine helicopters and planes were battling the blaze in the northeast of the island, including 60 members of the army's Military Emergency Unit, the unit wrote on social media.
The regional government of Tenerife requested assistance from the army late Wednesday as strong winds fanned the flames.
The fire forced the evacuation of around 3,000 people from the town of Santa Ursula, and another 200 from La Orotava, the regional government said.
"When we had everything ready, the Guardia Civil police arrived and told us that we had to leave," Victoria Hernandez Quintero, a 74-year-old who fled her home in Santa Ursula, told AFPTV.
The blaze, which first broke out on August 15, was declared under control on September 11 after destroying around 15,000 hectares (37,000 acres) of woodland, but was never fully put out.
It rekindled on Wednesday amid scorching temperatures in Tenerife that reached nearly 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) on some parts of the island.
Winds had died down on Thursday, helping firefighters in their battle against the blaze, but temperatures were forecast to remain high in the coming days which could spark more outbreaks, official said.
Popular tourist areas on Tenerife, part of the Canary Islands archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, have so far been unaffected and its two airports have been operating normally.
"Last night the fire gave us a big scare, fortunately it did not get worse, and we can expect a few days of a tense calm in which we will have to pay close attention to how the weather evolves," the archipelago's head of emergencies, Manuel Miranda, said in a statement.
The seven-island archipelago is located off the northwest coast of Africa and southwest of mainland Spain. At their nearest point, the islands are 100 kilometres (60 miles) from Morocco.
As global temperatures rise due to climate change, scientists have warned that heatwaves will become more frequent and more intense.
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