Chilean firefighters yesterday tried to contain a massive wildfire that has ravaged tens of thousands of acres of pristine Patagonia and forced authorities to close a popular national park.
High winds fanned the blaze at the Torres del Paine National Park, a 2,400km2 paradise of mountains, glaciers, natural forests and lakes in southern Chile visited by more than 100,000 people every year.
After meeting emergency officials struggling to get a grip on the inferno, Chilean President Sebastian Pinera announced that the park would remain shut for the whole of this month.
QUADRUPLED BLAZE
About 11,000 hectares of woodland and scrub, nearly 4 percent of the total area of the park, have already been destroyed by the blaze, which more than quadrupled in size in less than 24 hours.
The Chilean government has deployed four planes and a helicopter to the remote mountainous region, where 300 firefighters, soldiers and forest rangers are engaged in a desperate effort to get the inferno under control.
Aerial photographs showed a vast cloud of smoke obscuring the beautiful backdrop of snow-clad granite peaks, wild steppes and turquoise lakes.
“We are faced with a hugely complex situation, an extreme scenario, mainly due to topography, strong winds and highly combustible vegetation,” Chilean National Office of Emergency director Vicente Nunez said.
A crucial break was hoped for yesterday, when 10mm to 15mm of rain was expected.
The US Department of State earlier on Friday alerted US citizens in an advisory to the ongoing forest fires and urged them to avoid heading to the region.
evacuation
The blaze erupted late on Tuesday and advanced rapidly in dry conditions, forcing authorities to evacuate 700 people, mostly tourists, from the park, which is located about 3,000km south of Santiago.
Environmentalist group Accion Ecologica criticized what it said was the government’s slow response to the wildfire, drawing an unfavorable comparison with its rapid crackdown on students protesting education reforms.
“We would have liked to see a government as gifted at throwing water on the flames consuming our natural heritage as they are on citizens defending their rights,” activist Luis Mariano Rendon said.
A 2005 bush fire started by a Czech backpacker destroyed 160km2 of the Torres del Paine National Park, which was designated a World Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO in 1978.
SEEKING HELP
Pinera pledged another 100 personnel would join crews yesterday and said his government would seek “all necessary assistance” from other countries, having already contacted Argentina, Australia and the US.
Neighboring Argentina, which has its own forests just across the border from Torres del Paine, has sent emergency teams to help.
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