PUERTO MONTT, Chile, May 8 (Reuters) - Chile evacuated the last of a small group of military personnel and civilians from the vicinity of an erupting volcano in its remote Patagonian south before dawn on Thursday, after it spat a surge of fiery material, officials said.

Chile's government has already evacuated thousands of people from within a 30 mile (50 km) radius of Chaiten volcano, which lies some 760 miles (1,220 km) south of the capital Santiago and has showered towns as far away as neighboring Argentina in ash.

The town of Chaiten sits just 6 miles (10 km) from the volcano, and nearly the entire civilian population had already been completely evacuated. Three civilians had been holding out.

"Army personnel have seen pyroclastic material, burning material," Miguel Munoz of the government's National Emergency Office told Reuters. "So the (remaining) civilian and army personnel have been moved."

The long dormant 3,280-foot (1,000-meter) Chaiten volcano began erupting on Friday for the first time in thousands of years, and the huge plume of volcanic ash is clearly visible on satellite images cutting a swathe across South America's southern tip.

Experts believe the volcano could continue belching out vast clouds of ash for months, and say it could rumble on for years.

Chile has the world's second most active string of volcanoes behind Indonesia. It is home to 2,000 volcanoes, 500 of which experts say are potentially active. Around 60 have erupted over the past 450 years. (Reporting by Antonio de la Jara and Esteban Medel. Writing by Simon Gardner, editing by Jackie Frank)

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