Wildfires destroyed almost 600 hectares of Los Alerces National Park in Argentina

Firefighters are fighting this Saturday a forest fire in Los Alerces National Parkin Argentine Patagonia, which has already destroyed almost 600 hectares amid high summer temperatures, the official Télam agency reported.

Brigade members and personnel from Chubut province attempted to do so The flames will not reach the nearby towns of Esquel and Trevelin, about 2,000 km southwest of Buenos Aires.

“The fire is no longer under control” declared Mario Cárdenas, head of the Fire, Communications and Emergency (ICE) department of the park, declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2017.

He said the fire, which started Thursday evening, has expanded from about 65 hectares to 577 hectares of forest and is now leaving the park’s jurisdiction.

The conditions for controlling it “are unfavorable because we still have a lot of wind and high temperatures. “That makes our tasks quite difficult,” says Cárdenas.

Télam said the fire, located in the Centinela Stream area off Rosales Bay on Futalaufquen Lake, consumed native forest and burned species such as ñire, laura, cohiue reed and lenga.

Los Alerces National Park reported this on its Instagram account on Friday evening A drone flew over the area to assess the progress of the fireand firefighters from Esquel, with a population of about 37,000, and Trevelin, with about 8,000, “are on site to protect the towns near the fire.”

The National Meteorological Service (SMN) today reported record temperatures of more than 40ºC in Argentine Patagonia, leading the provinces of Chubut and Río Negro to declare a state of emergency until April due to the risk of vegetation fires.

According to the SMN forecast, the heat will remain in Patagonia over the next week and spread northwards, in the central and most populous provinces of Buenos Aires, Santa Fe, Córdoba and Entre Ríos, with temperatures reaching 38 degrees. °C. (JO)