Rain Helps Northern Amazon Fires
3/31/98
*******************************
RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: Rain Helps Northern Amazon Fires
Source: Reuters
Status: Copyrighted, contact source to reprint
Date: 3/31/98
Byline: William Schomberg
BRASILIA, March 31 (Reuters) - Rain fell on Tuesday in various areas of
Brazil's northern Amazon ravaged by huge savanna and forest fires, just
hours after two Indian shamans performed an ancient ritual to bring on the
storm clouds.
"In general terms, the rain has been of great help and has reduced the
number of fires," said army Col. Jorge Fraxe, a spokesman for Brazil's
biggest firefighting effort.
"But all the troops remain in the area and they will continue to work,"
Fraxe said by telephone from Boa Vista, capital of remote Roraima state,
near the Venezuelan border.
In the town's streets, which earlier this week were shrouded in smoke, cars
drove carefully through deep puddles. The two shamans, or medicine men,
from the distant Kaiapo tribe celebrated in front of television cameras as
the clouds opened.
Flown in by the government from central Mato Grosso state, they performed a
ritual on the beach of a dried-up river on Monday night, using creepers and
other plants from their Xingu region to call on "the men up there" to send
down rain.
Officials on Tuesday flew over an area inside the massive rain forest
reservation of the Yanomami Indians and reported that fires there had been
completely put out by the rain.
The situation improved in other areas badly hit by fires, including the
Apiau and Caracarai farming districts, where the biggest groups of a total
of 1,700 firefighters are deployed.
Fires continued in those regions, but firefighters were finding it easier
to extinguish the flames, Fraxe said.
Rain also fell on the Maraca ecological reservation. Prized by scientists
for its remarkable biological diversity, the nature preserve has been
damaged by fires.
But other affected areas, like the Pacaraima region, on the Venezuelan
border, continued dry.
A forecaster with the National Weather Institute in Brasilia said there was
more rain on the way for Roraima.
"There are conditions for further rain until Friday in areas which have
been burning," the forecaster said, adding that he expected between 3/8 and
3/4 inch (1 to 1.5 cm) of rain a day over that period.
Fires set by subsistence farmers in Roraima have spread out of control
since January amid a drought blamed on the weather phenomenon El Nino.
Winds have also hampered the efforts of firefighters to control the
hundreds of blazes.
An area the size of Lebanon is believed to have been destroyed, most of it
scrub-covered savanna, although flames have advanced into rain forest
normally too humid to burn.
Fires have also been raging in neighboring Venezuela and Guyana, sending
smoke into northern Brazil.
U.N. disaster experts flew to Boa Vista on Tuesday to assess the damage and
to evaluate the kind of foreign aircraft Brazil needs to bolster its
firefighting.
Other U.N. officials in Brasilia were awaiting word from them before
beginning a search for water-carrying planes and helicopters among U.N.
member nations.
Only four specialized water-carrying helicopters, on loan from Argentina,
are currently operating in Roraima.
The U.N. is also preparing to help Brazil draw up a risk management plan
for the rest of the Amazon, identifying areas where farming and logging
have reduced the rain forest's natural humidity and increased its
vulnerability to fire.
(C) Reuters Limited 1998.