With temperatures around 40 degrees, firefighters were mobilized this weekend on forest fires in nine of the 23 provinces of Argentina, one of which has been active for more than a month and has destroyed nearly 6,000 hectares of vegetation, without injuries or injuries. evacuations to date.
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Nearly a hundred firefighters and support personnel, supported by five planes and four helicopters, fought the most tenacious of these fires near Lake San Martin, in the Nahuel Huapi National Park, not far from the tourist town of Bariloche (1,500 km southwest of Buenos Aires), according to the National Fire Management Service (SNMF) "
It is one of the most serious fires that we have had in the region
", indicated to AFP Lorena Ojeda, director SNMF operations, at the scene of this fire that has been going on since December 6 following lightning strikes. Wind and high temperatures, 35 to 40 degrees with peaks above, "
contribute to the continued spread of the fire
", with weather forecast "
rainfall that may not be enough
,” according to Lorena Ojeda.
Smoke covers the entire landscape.
JONAS MAXI / AFP
5900 hectares impacted
About 5,900 hectares of "
indigenous Andean forest
", with a mixture of cypress, bamboo, ñire (southern beech), mayten (tree of the spindle family), notro (shrub of the proteaceae) were impacted by the flames.
But neither injured, nor evacuation was deplored in this rugged area, with a very low population density.
"
The fire is 50 km from Bariloche, but there is no risk of evacuation at the moment
," firefighters told AFP.
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Fires in the forest areas of southern and central Argentina, a country with an area more than five times larger than France, are an endemic occurrence of southern summers.
But usually less in coastal areas, where many are reported this summer.
The recent panorama "
climate is very unfavorable, with two consecutive years of drought (...), a persistent heat wave
", explained the biologist and deputy minister of the Environment Sergio Federovisky to the public radio station Radio Telam.
An aerial view of the lights.
STRINGER / REUTERS
Friday's bulletin from the SNMF thus reported about thirty outbreaks of various sizes in nine distinct provinces, half of which were "
active
".
However, 2021 was one of the least impacted years in terms of hectares of forest destroyed by fire in five years, according to recent statistics from the SNMF: 330,000 ha recorded, against 1.1 million ha in 2020.