Assumption.- Fires in the north of Paraguay, at the apex border with Bolivia and Brazil, have left for the moment more than 61,000 hectares calcined in an area where fire prevention tasks are still continuing, according to the data offered this Friday by the National Forest Institute (Infona). Infona President Cristina Goralewski pointed out to Efe that this is the magnitude of the affecttion recorded through Wednesday through a measurement of the Global Forest Watch platform, with which the agency monitors the rational use of the country’s natural areas.
“This morning’s data is 61,320 hectares affected by the fire and we understand that yesterday and today (Friday) some hotspots were revived,” Goralewski said, commenting that fire brigades and experts work non-stop on the ground with support from the National Emergency (SEN). The Infona’s holder added that the containment of the floodlights is carried out “on land and area”, the latter by means of a Chilean Air Force aircraft with discharge capacity per flight 3,000 liters of water. The fire consumed 13,896 hectares of the Cerro Chovoreca Natural Monument, a district of Bahía Negra, while in the Río Negro area, near Tres Gigantes station, 47,333 devastated hectares were identified in the Paraguayan Pantanal region.
Once we are free from these hotspots we will work on the recovery measures of these areas, said Goralewski.
He also said that whoever satellite images can help determine whether the origin of the fires was due to the burning fields that they usually do at this time of year. In this sense, he deepened that at the end of September the rainy season enters, “of regrowth, so in August it is very common that in the fields are made the burningofs of pastures, which cause this type of catastrophe if they get out of control”. Precisely, the Paraguayan Prosecutor’s Office announced on Thursday the presence in the area, far from the capital of the country and difficult to access by land, of the prosecutor Andrés Arriola, of the Specialized Unit in Environment, for rigorous investigations following allegations of grassland burning. Penalties for violators of these ancestral practices now regulated with mitigation measures prevent penalties of one to five years in prison, in addition to fines.” This belief is held that the burnings renew the soils, but it is proven that this actually does harm, leaves the land exposed and in danger of desertification,” said Goralewski.The fire at the northern end of the Paraguayan Chaco affected an ecosystem 340,000 square kilometers covering much of western Brazil, the far north of Paraguay and eastern Bolivia.
This wetland, where nearly 3,500 varieties of plants grow, is home to 656 species of birds, 325 fish and 159 of mammals, as well as dozens of reptiles and amphibians. In the last month there have been simultaneous fires in several countries in South America. In Bolivia, more than 700,000 hectares of forests and pastures have burned in the Area of Chiquitania Cruceña, a transition zone between the Amazon and the Chaco, affecting 1,817 families. In the case of Brazil, the National Institute of Space Research (INPE), which accounts for fires using satellite imagery, has reported that firesources across the country so far this year exceed 83% of those of the same period in 2018.
