‘Line of Fire’: Fire in northern Argentina burns 5 million acres

A fire in the Corrientes has reached gigantic proportions, spreading to more than 5 million acres, in other words to 6% of the total area of ​​the northern province, underlining the effects of the La Nina drought on the Latin American country.

A source close to Civil Protection told Reuters that firefighters were continuing their efforts to contain the blaze and that houses and a hotel in the provincial capital, about 500 miles (800 km) north of the federal capital, Buenos Aires, had been evacuated.

“The flames are spreading by leaps and bounds, they have already charred hundreds of thousands of acres, turning fields into a line of fire that is almost impossible to control,” a spokesman for the province’s farmers told a news conference.

In Corrientes are produced, among others, citrus, rice, tobacco, mate (a plant from the leaves of which one can make a decoction similar to tea), cotton, while in the province there are livestock units and some income is also brought by the forestry activity.

“Nearly 5,180,000 acres are burning,” said Nicolas Pino, president of the Association of Rural Communities in Corrientes, speaking on an Argentine television network, adding that he hoped it would rain to help reduce the blaze.

“The fields will be saved, we will have heavy rainfall at some point and this disaster will stop, but (the fire) really brought the problem (of drought) to the fore,” he said.

The National Meteorological Service of Argentina predicts light rainfall in the coming days, just 5 to 10 millimeters.

Argentina is hit by the second in a row La Nina phenomenon, which greatly reduces rainfall in its central, rural areas – which are key to the South American state’s exports and foreign exchange reserves in a deep economic crisis.

SOURCE: AMPE