Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, January 30 (Xinhua) -- The fire in Argentina's Los Aleses National Park has not been extinguished after burning for many days, and the burned area has exceeded 1,000 hectares, officials from Argentina's emergency department said on January 29. Local ** said that the fire was set by someone.
Mario Cárdenas, director of the park's emergency department, told the Argentine Inter-American News Agency on the 29th: "At present, the fire is still raging, and the burned area has exceeded 1,000 hectares. ”
A fire broke out in Los Alerces National Park on the 25th, and soldiers and more than 250 firefighters participated in the firefighting, using fire-fighting aircraft, but strong winds and hot weather hindered the progress of rescue work. The area around the fire site was filled with thick smoke and visibility deteriorated significantly.
Firefighters continue to fight the fire in an effort to stop the fire from spreading to the nearby towns of Esquel and Trevérin.
Located in the province of Chubut, in the Patagonian region of southern Argentina, Los Alerces National Park covers more than 260,000 hectares and is a World Heritage Site known for its glaciers, lakes and native forest landscapes with ancient tree species. It's summer in the southern hemisphere, and Patagonia has been cool and windy in previous summers, but this year temperatures have repeatedly exceeded 40 degrees Celsius, and two provinces have declared a state of emergency due to heat and fire risks.
The governor of Chubut, Ignacio Torres, recently flew to inspect the fire fighting in Los Alerces National Park.
Torres said on the 28th: "We have confirmed that this fire was deliberately set on fire. The perpetrators must be brought to justice. He called for severe punishment of arsonists "to set an example."
Torres previously revealed in an interview with a radio station that there was more than one arsonist, all of whom were members of a radical indigenous organization, and that "the problem is not with the indigenous people, but with the ...... of these criminals."I think it's time to put an end to this kind of [criminal] behaviour once and for all." (Yang Shuyi).