Vast fires sweep across Bolivia as well as Brazil

LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP):

While global attention has been focused on fires burning across the Brazilian Amazon, neighbouring Bolivia is battling its own vast blazes, which have charred an area nearly as extensive as the nation of Lebanon.

At least 38,793 fires were burning across the country as of the weekend, and a total of 3,700 square miles (950,000 hectares) have been burned so far this year, according to Cliver Rocha, director of the national Forests and Lands Authority.

While some of the fires were burning in Bolivia’s share of the Amazon, the largest blazes were in the Chiquitanía region of southeastern Bolivia, a zone of dry forest, farmland, and open prairies that has seen an expansion of farming and ranching in recent years.

The College of Biologists in the capital, La Paz, has estimated that the fires have destroyed US $1.1 billion worth of timber.

Yanine Rubí Montero said that the fires burned away the lemon trees her family depended on near the rural town of Robore. They were left without water as well because the blaze destroyed a plastic pipe that ran to a well. One neighbour fled with just the clothes on her back, Montero said.

“The smoke is making us sick, and the lack of water is really affecting us,” she said.

President Evo Morales, who has been under criticism for an allegedly slow response to the fires, was in the region yesterday overseeing firefighting efforts involving more than 3,500 people, including soldiers, police, and volunteers.

The government last week contracted the world’s largest firefighting tanker plane from the United States, and officials say it has helped control expansion of the fires, but hot, dry, and windy conditions have kept the blazes burning. Peru yesterday contributed to the effort by sending two helicopter tankers.

Associated Press journalist Juan Karita contributed to this story from Robore, Bolivia.