Brazil Fires Raging Toward Major Nature Park
8/30/98
*******************************
RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: Brazil Fires Raging Toward Major Nature Park
Source: Reuters
Status: Copyrighted, contact source to reprint
Date: 8/30/98
Byline: Tracey Ober
RIO DE JANEIRO - Brazilian firefighters, desperate to avert a repeat
of recent disastrous fires in the Amazon, struggled on Tuesday to
contain a blaze threatening a major wildlife reserve, officials said.
Jaguars, monkeys, anteaters, deer and a host of tropical birds have
perished in the dense smoke and flames raging across the central
Brazilian river-bound island of Bananal.
"This fire is really worrying. It's in a very delicate ecological
region," Augusto Adelino, coordinator of the government's fire
prevention programme Preve-Fogo, told Reuters in a telephone
interview.
"The fire is in an area of great significance for wildlife and we are
putting a major effort into putting it out."
He said the El Nino weather phenomenon had exacerbated the island's
normal dry season, making it much easier for the fire to chew through
vast grasslands.
Earlier this year, Brazil was caught off guard by a fire that
destroyed a huge swath of savanna in the north and even penetrated the
Amazon rainforest, which is normally too humid to burn.
The Brazilian government was widely criticised for its response to the
fires, which ended up wiping out an area of Amazon rainforest the size
of Luxembourg, and has set up rapid-response team of firefighters and
military personnel.
Brazil's fires are usually started in the dry season by farmers who
burn land to clear scrub.
According to a report in leading newspaper O Globo, the Bananal fire
probably started on a ranch in the state of Mata Grosso, where there
were over 200 farming fires by the first week of August that were big
enough to spot by satellite.
Preve-fogo estimates the fire that reached the southern tip of Bananal
10 days ago already has destroyed some 123,500 acres (50,000 hectares)
of the 5.2-million-acre (2.1-million-hectare) island, the largest
river-bound island in the world.
High winds were spreading the fire rapidly toward a major wildlife
reserve, the Araguaia National Park, and making it difficult to
control, officials at Brazil's environment agency Ibama said.
Ibama sent in a team of 15 fire prevention experts on Monday and is
sending a second group on Tuesday. They will assess the path and
pattern of the fire and coordinate firefighting efforts, a spokesman
in Brasilia said.
The southern part of Bananal is a reservation for Karaja Indians who
are worried about the fire and smoke, O Globo said, quoting one of the
residents.
"People spend the whole time worrying about the fire. Everyone is
alert for a spark or any sign of smoke nearby," the Karaja woman said.
Firefighters said they were hampered because strong winds made it
extremely dangerous to fight the flames, so they were clearing
firebreaks during the day and attacking the fire at night.
"We are only effectively fighting the fire from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m.
because that is when the wind stops," said Jose Vanderley Cambuim,
Ibama director in the nearby town of Sao Miguel do Araguai. "It's an
exhausting and unpleasant job."
(c) Reuters 1998