Claudio Andrade
02/04/2021 4:46 PM
Clarín.com
Society
Updated 02/04/2021 4:46 PM
The El Bolsón fire got out of control again in the last hours on the north slope of the emblematic Piltriquitrón hill and over the El Mirador and Unión neighborhoods, where more than 100 families are scattered who fear for their homes, built with wood, located just 400 meters from the flames.
High temperatures, low humidity and gusts of wind that exceed 50 kilometers per hour revived the fire, between Wednesday and Thursday, in the most populated rural areas.
For the next few days,
the Cordillera expects temperatures of between 37 and 38 degrees and little wind, a figure that offers not very encouraging prospects.
The latest survey indicates that there are
about 7,500 hectares affected.
Since Monday, the residents of El Bolsón began to perceive how the smoke and a notorious smell of burning spread along the commercial streets of the Andean town that these days, despite the pandemic, reaches peaks of up to
80% of hotel occupancy.
Meanwhile, in the neighborhoods under threat, residents work side by side cooling the vegetation that surrounds their fragile houses with water that they release using bottles and buckets.
Some say they have burned their hands and feet in their efforts.
Hydrant planes at certain critical times of the day have stopped operating due to thick plumes of smoke and dangerous pockets of high temperatures that pilots must cross when they descend to discharge the water.
In the last hours the mayor of the town, Bruno Pogliano, contacted the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development of the Nation in search of urgent help.
"We ask the Nation to reinforce the operation to contain the fire by sending material resources and also brigade members," Pogliano told local media.
So far there are around 200 brigadistas from Splif, Volunteer Firefighters, among other combatants from Neuquén, Córdoba and Chubut working on the fire.
To these are added 2 hydrant planes
, 3 helicopters and 2 road machines.
In not a few brigadistas the signs of physical and mental exhaustion are already evident after almost 2 weeks of unequal struggle, sources in El Bolsón say.
The conduction of the Splif divided the fire into 6 sectors and currently the most complicated focus, official sources acknowledge, is 2, or the area where the fire originated 11 days ago after a group of people left a stove badly extinguished .
Last week these people, originally from Cipolletti and who were out for a walk, were notified at a hearing by the Río Negro Justice and face charges of environmental damage due to their direct responsibility in the case.
"The weather conditions complicate the tasks and they are trying to contain sector 2. This fire is 6 fires in 1," Fernando Arbar, Rio Negro's undersecretary of Forest Resources, told Clarín.
"This fire originates precisely in an outlet that is at the entrance of Route 6 and is complicated in the El Mirador neighborhood," he added.
Originally the fire, which broke out in the Cuesta Ternero area, had bypassed the El Mirador neighborhood.
In the first days, two houses and a shed were lost.
But the wind turned the direction of the flames that also found new vigor in the high temperatures.
"The situation today (Thursday) is complex in the meteorological aspect because very high temperatures and low humidity are expected," Alberto Seufferheld, director of the National Fire Management Service, told El Cordillerano.
Neighbors of El Bolsón continue to collect food, water and shoes for the inhabitants of the Unión and El Mirador neighborhoods.
This morning some demonstrated in the streets of the town demanding that the municipality and the Nation manage the arrival of larger hydrant planes.
"The operation now is small for the size of the fire, they have to bring the Canadian planes from Chile," an important businessman from El Bolsón who has a critical opinion on the operation told Clarín.
“We are outside the municipality, demanding concrete answers to stop the fire.
We summon the entire community of the Andean Region ”, says one of the messages that were shared this Thursday on social networks.
“The people of the Comarca in Assembly until they put out the fire.
Demanding the hiring of Chilean Canadian planes ”, says another.
Meanwhile, the national deputy,
Luis Di Giacomo of the provincial party Together We Are Río Negro, presented a bill
in Congress that raises the penalties of those responsible for forest fires.
The bill provides penalties of up to 25 years in prison in the event of loss of human life and also severe fines.
“Whoever has started a fire of these characteristics has to feel and be aware of what they have done.
Firm sanctions are needed that encourage, that promote the care of our environment ”, the Rio Negro legislator told Clarín.