A fire devastates more than 2,000 hectares in Argentine Patagonia

A forest fire has already devastated more than 2,000 hectares in Argentine Patagonia.

The fire started in the Los Alerces National Park on Thursday and is advancing, burning the native forest while dozens of brigade members and volunteers try to stop the flames.

The authorities have assured that the start of the fire was “clearly intentional”, a practice that is repeated every season in these territories.

This year, however, it occurs in a different political context: while the Argentine Congress debates the approval of a bill that, among hundreds of other measures, modifies the country's environmental legislation.

Around 200 agents worked in the area this Tuesday and volunteer neighbors were also mobilized, as every time a fire of this nature occurs, to help in the extinguishing efforts.

The emergency they have been facing since Thursday coincides with the southern summer and a heat wave that has several provinces in Argentina on alert.

Although the province of Chubut, in the south of the country, is not among those that register the highest temperatures, the authorities have reported that the heat and wind make the tasks of containing the flames difficult, according to the latest official report, from the nine at night (local time).

The mayor of Los Alerces National Park, Danilo Hernández Otaño, has indicated that the weather “is not favorable” and the fire risk index is “extreme.”

Furthermore, he has pointed out that “there is danger” because the fire is spreading over this protected area, which covers an area of ​​almost 260,000 hectares.

“No person who is alive today, on this planet, will ever see this forest again in the state in which he was,” Hernández Otaño lamented in television statements.

For several years, these forests have been threatened by fires every summer season.

One of the largest incidents on record occurred in 2015, when more than 30,000 hectares burned in this same province in two weeks.

Argentine legislation has different laws that protect these areas and that were sanctioned in the last 15 years thanks to the fight of environmental organizations.

However, a law with more than 600 articles that the national government presented in Congress and that will begin voting this Wednesday modifies part of the country's environmental legislation.

The initiative includes a section that seeks to eliminate regulations and controls on productive activities that can be carried out, for example, in forests and glaciers.

“The environmental chapter is an enormous regression, of 20 or 30 years,” says lawyer Enrique Viale, who presides over the Argentine Association of Environmental Lawyers.

Environmentalists have warned about the modifications that Milei's initiative introduces in some regulations such as the Fire Management Law, which created the National Fire Management Service, in charge of coordinating resources to prevent and combat fires;

the Forest Law, which regulates the use of native forests;

the law that controls the burning of grasslands and wetlands, or the glacier protection law, which for Viale is “the most brutal.”

“This [the vote on the bill] occurs in a context of global climate change, which causes events such as fires to multiply in the world and become more virulent.

There has to be a public policy,” claims the lawyer.

While he was a candidate, Milei denied the scientific evidence about the climate crisis and expressed that they are “lies of socialism”;

Victoria Villarruel, her vice candidate, repudiated the creation of national parks in the campaign.

When they arrived at the Casa Rosada, his government downgraded the Ministry of the Environment to undersecretary.

“This within the framework of a shrinking of the State at all levels,” explains Viale, who adds that the “precariousness” that the brigade members already suffer is becoming even more profound.

Two distant lights

The fire began to spread on Thursday night from two distant sources.

The fire advanced until it created a single front that was “very difficult to control,” according to authorities.

This Thursday, 70% of the fire affected the park, which contains the largest sector of Valdivian jungle in the country and the oldest known larch forest.

Hernández Otaño considered that due to the manner and time in which it originated “there is no doubt” that the fire was “clearly intentional.”

“It didn't happen due to a lightning strike;

It is not a stove that escaped;

“It did not happen under a power line…” he said in statements to national media, although he pointed out the difficulty of identifying those responsible for the fire.

The governor of the province, Ignacio Torres, of the PRO, the party founded by former conservative president Mauricio Macri, was quick to blame the destruction of the forests on those he considers “pseudomapuches.”

“The problem is not the native peoples, the problem is these criminals who take land under false flags,” he told national media.

Organizations such as Amnesty International have already warned in the past of the “deep concern” caused by the “stigmatization and persecution” carried out by the authorities of these communities for the claim to the territories they maintain in Patagonia protected by the Constitution.

“Who benefits from the fires?

It is obvious that the Mapuche people do not,” responded activist Moira Millán in a press conference this Tuesday and criticized the “racist accusations.”

The Mapuche leader and other defenders of the territory, on the other hand, have denounced “extactivist” and “real estate” interests in the area.

“You need to configure criminal scenarios to blame our people,” said Millán and concluded: “The Mapuche people have the responsibility of taking care of the territory.

“The Mapuche people would never set the forests on fire.”

Subscribe here to the

EL PAÍS América

newsletter and receive all the key information on current events in the region.