Colombia | More than 9,000 hectares burned by forest fires

(Bogotá) Colombia is battling forest fires in the west and southwest of the country that have burned more than 9,000 hectares, fueled by drought and heat, authorities said Friday.

The affected departments are Tolima, Cundinamarca, Huila, Nariño, Cauca and Valle del Cauca.

At least 25 outbreaks were active at midday on Friday, half of them in the department of Tolima, according to the National Unit for Risk and Disaster Management.

Two people were injured in the village of Nagataima, the worst affected by the fires, where an aqueduct and homes were destroyed, according to the same source.

The temperature there exceeded 41°C, said the department’s environmental agency, Cortolima.

In the neighboring community of Cundinamarca, not far from the capital Bogota, roads have been closed and dozens of firefighters are battling the flames with the help of army helicopters.

In the department of Huila, where a state of public calamity was declared on Sunday, six municipalities are still suffering from fires.

These regions “have a deficit of precipitation and an increase in temperatures conducive to fire alerts,” according to Ghisliane Echeverry, director of the Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology and Environmental Studies of Colombia.

Other Latin American countries are being hit by a heatwave and violent fires. In Ecuador, more than 23,000 hectares went up in smoke from August 23 to September 18, while in Peru, a state of emergency has been declared in three departments affected by numerous fires.

Brazil is being ravaged by a “fire pandemic,” in the words of a judge of its Supreme Court, with 61,572 outbreaks recorded in the first 17 days of September, compared to 46,498 for the whole month in 2023.

The fires, most of which are of criminal origin according to Brazilian authorities, have reached key areas for biodiversity such as the Amazon, the Cerrado and the Pantanal, in addition to the national park in the capital Brasilia.