by he wind became a fundamental factor in the fight to control the fire that broke out in the Los Alerces National Park, in Chubut. And from this Sunday at noon there is no respite. During the early hours of this Monday, The fire advanced in the direction of Esquel and there are already evacuees in the upper part of the city. More precisely in Upper Percy River.
“Since yesterday (this Sunday), the outlook is quite adverse“, will allow the brigade members to continue working piece-rate to control the fire. But the advance of the fire made it preventive evacuation to the residents of the upper part of the Percy River.
“During the afternoon (Sunday) the fire had another explosion and he went to the side of Esquel. It hasn’t reached the city yet, it’s still far away, but it stayed in that direction, so it advanced a lot again,” said main spokesperson Mario Cárdenas, head of the Park’s Fire Communications and Emergencies (ICE) department.
“Yesterday’s weather conditions made it very difficult for us. And there is still windSo, although today is not going to be so hot, we are facing a very adverse outlook,” Cárdenas added.
An increasingly uncontrollable fire
The fire that started on January 25 in the National Park spread within the provincial jurisdiction, destroying more than 3,000 hectares of native forest. Now, due to climate conditions, Esquel threatens.
“The most complicated sector continues to be sector 7, which is the one near Route 259, today nine kilometers between Esquel and Trevelin, which is where the strongest shock occurred yesterday,” explained the Park’s mayor, Danilo Hernández Otaño. .
In a conversation with Télam, he added that in that area, the wind “acquired the highest speeds and caused the fire to pass through the lines, even the lines opened with a bulldozer, jumping the width of a street without any difficulty,” he warned.
From the municipality of Esquel it was reported that the uncontrollable fire yesterday afternoon generated new secondary outbreaks next to Lake Bueno.
“This situation caused the activation of the protocol to preventively evacuate the residents of the upper part of the Percy River,” it was indicated in a statement.
The director of Municipal Civil Protection, Sergio Caneo, highlighted that the preventive activity of reviewing roads allowed a rapid evacuation in the community of Alto Rio Percy, located very close to Esquel.
Caneo flew over the perimeter of the fire this Monday morning to monitor the behavior of the fire and analyze whether the evacuation will extend beyond Río Percy.
Brigade members and firefighters are working in the area this Monday to control the flames and a police guard and radio operators were also stationed in the upper area of the Nores Martinez neighborhood to monitor the activity.
This Monday, road teams continued creating firebreaks to protect houses, while traffic to Alto Rio Percy is restricted and only emergency teams and residents of the area can travel.
Due to the advance of the fire, the mayor of the city of Esquel, Matías Taccetta, declared a fire emergency within the municipal fabric on Saturday.
The declaration of igneous emergency is for a period of 30 days, since it directly and indirectly affects the area between the National Park and the community of Alto Río Percy.
“Experts on the subject consider that the situation could normalize within a month – as long as weather conditions allow – since there are still several active outbreaks,” a statement from the municipality reported.
With this resolution, Mayor Taccetta authorized the Ministry of Economy and Productive Development to “expedite any type of purchase that is essential, as well as to contract works necessary to combat the fire.”
With information from Télam
