By Lucinda Elliott and Jake Spring
(Reuters) – Bolivia is grappling with a record number of fires in the first seven months of the year, satellite data showed on Thursday, as the flames send villagers fleeing, kill wildlife and char the landscape.
Diesel shortages across the country are further complicating firefighting efforts by making it more difficult to reach remote areas and tackle the blazes, local charities said.
Bolivia registered roughly 17,700 fire points from January through July, the most ever seen in that period in the country, according to data from Brazil’s space research agency Inpe, which monitors fires in all of South America.
There have been a record number of monthly fire points in Bolivia for three consecutive months through July, according to Inpe.
The continent overall is bracing for an intense fire season, as a drought driven by climate change has dried out vegetation in much of the region. The worst of the dry season lies ahead, with wildfires generally peaking in August and September, Inpe data show.
Some of the largest fires so far have been in far eastern Bolivia, a region dominated by dry leaf forests and the Pantanal, the world’s largest wetlands.
In Robore, a town in the lowland region of Santa Cruz badly affected by July’s blazes, video footage showed burnt animals along roadsides and villagers fleeing thick plumes of smoke.
“I ran as fast as I could, I was lucky enough to save myself,” said one farmer in Robore, who had escaped from a burning tractor and did not give his name.
The town is roughly 200 km (124 miles) from the Gran Chaco national park, home to jaguars and guanacos, and is surrounded by farms that raise cattle and harvest crops like corn and rice.
Robore Mayor Jose Diaz Ruiz said reservoir levels had been falling for two months.
“It hasn’t rained,” he said. “Fire has consumed our forests.”
The scale of the fires in Bolivia vastly increased last month. Major blazes with emissions visible on satellite images began to break out on July 18, according to data compiled by nonprofit Amazon Conservation.
EARLIER DRY SEASON
Climate change is causing the dry season – typically from July to October – to start earlier, said Natalia Calderon, director of non-profit Fundación Amigos de la Naturaleza (FAN-Bolivia).
Shifting rain patterns, high winds and the drought cause the blazes to spread faster and last longer, she said.
Just across the border, Brazil has been fighting fires in the Pantanal that have burned a record area so far this year. Brazil’s Amazon rainforest has also recorded its highest number of blazes since 2005.
Venezuela, Guyana and Suriname have also seen the most fires ever in the first seven months of the year, Inpe data show.
Bolivia’s environmental destruction has surged in recent years, ranking third for tropical primary forest loss in 2023 after Brazil and the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to the Global Forest Watch monitoring initiative.
Fires typically follow deforestation in the region, as farmers clear land for cattle pasture or crops.
The Bolivian government did not respond to a Reuters request for comment on the causes of the wildfires.
Vice Minister of Civil Defense, Juan Carlos Calvimontes, said in a statement to journalists that authorities had warned ranchers and farmers to be careful using fire given the dry conditions.
Calderon and other environmentalists cautioned against overemphasizing agriculture’s role, saying that fires for waste disposal and home heating were also a factor.
(Reporting by Lucinda Elliott in Montevideo and Jake Spring in Sao Paulo; Additional reporting by Carlos Sanchez in Robore, Daniel Ramos and Monica Machicao in La Paz; Editing by Frances Kerry)
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