The 2010 Bolivia forest fires led the
country's government to declare a
state of emergency
A state of emergency is a situation in which a government is empowered to be able to put through policies that it would normally not be permitted to do, for the safety and protection of its citizens. A government can declare such a state du ...
, as
wildfire
A wildfire, forest fire, bushfire, wildland fire or rural fire is an unplanned, uncontrolled and unpredictable fire in an area of Combustibility and flammability, combustible vegetation. Depending on the type of vegetation present, a wildfire ...
s spread across the country. More than 25,000 fires are burning across . These raging fires have destroyed nearly sixty homes.
Bolivia
, image_flag = Bandera de Bolivia (Estado).svg
, flag_alt = Horizontal tricolor (red, yellow, and green from top to bottom) with the coat of arms of Bolivia in the center
, flag_alt2 = 7 × 7 square p ...
is unable to combat the fires properly as it does not have enough
water bombing aircraft.
There was a steep jump in fire hot-spots from 17,000 on Sunday August 15 to approximately 25,000 three days later.
Some of the blazes were so strong that firefighters were unable to get close enough to contain them.
The head of Bolivia's forestry service, Weimar Becerra, described the fires as "a total disaster, it is an
environmental disaster
An environmental disaster or ecological disaster is defined as a catastrophic event regarding the natural environment that is due to human activity.Jared M. Diamond, '' Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed'', 2005 This point disti ...
. We have six forest fires which have a height of 50 m and are growing, and as a country we do not have the capacity to put them out".
Damage
Currently the worst of the damage has been to the country's section of
the Amazon. The fire is largest in the eastern part along the country's border with
Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
. Smoke from the fires has halted numerous flights and forced many smaller airports to close temporarily.
Despite being enveloped in smoke, Bolivia's main international airport in
Santa Cruz has stayed open, while 23 regional airports have been closed down.
According to Cliver Rojas from Bolivia's forests/land department, the most affected region was the Amazonian province of
Pando in the north.
Help from neighboring countries
The
President of Bolivia
The president of Bolivia ( es, Presidente de Bolivia), officially known as the president of the Plurinational State of Bolivia ( es, Presidente del Estado Plurinacional de Bolivia), is head of state and head of government of Bolivia and the ca ...
,
Evo Morales
Juan Evo Morales Ayma (; born 26 October 1959) is a Bolivian politician, trade union organizer, and former cocalero activist who served as the 65th president of Bolivia from 2006 to 2019. Widely regarded as the country's first president to co ...
, said that he requested that his neighboring countries, Brazil and
Argentina
Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...
, help with the efforts, but, as of August 21, 2010, help had not been received.
Cause
Farmers
A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, raising living organisms for food or raw materials. The term usually applies to people who do some combination of raising field crops, orchards, vineyards, poultry, or other livestock. A farmer mi ...
using fire to clear land for planting
combined with extreme
drought
A drought is defined as drier than normal conditions.Douville, H., K. Raghavan, J. Renwick, R.P. Allan, P.A. Arias, M. Barlow, R. Cerezo-Mota, A. Cherchi, T.Y. Gan, J. Gergis, D. Jiang, A. Khan, W. Pokam Mba, D. Rosenfeld, J. Tierney, an ...
caused the plants to dry out, allowing the fires to run rampant.
See also
*
List of wildfires
This is a list of notable wildfires.
Asia
China
*1987 – The Black Dragon Fire started in China and burnt a total of of forest along the Amur river, with destroyed on the Chinese side.
Hong Kong (Special Administrative Region of Chin ...
* Other major wildfires in 2010
**
Schultz Fire, was a wildfire which burned over , in Arizona, United States during June 2010.
**
Russian wildfires, are a series of hundreds of wildfires that broke out across Russia, starting in late July 2010.
**
California wildfires
This is a partial and incomplete list of California wildfires. California has dry, windy, and often hot weather conditions from spring through late autumn that can produce moderate to severe wildfires. Pre-1800, when the area was much more for ...
, are a series of seasonal wildfires active in the state of California, USA, during the year 2010.
**
Quebec wildfires, were a series of wildfires that affected over in Quebec, Canada, from late May to June 2010.
*
2010 Northern Hemisphere summer heat wave, is a severe heat wave that is impacting several countries worldwide during May, June, July and August 2010.
References
{{reflist,
refs=
[{{cite news , title= Fires destroy 1.5 million hectares of forest land in Bolivia, work=Trend News Agency (Azerbaijan) , date= 2010-08-18]
[{{cite news , title= Bolivia asks Argentina, Brazil for help in putting out Amazon fires, work= EFE News Service, date= 2010-08-19]
[{{cite news , first= Tom, last= Hennigan, title= Bolivia seeks aid on Amazon fires, work= Irish Times, date= 2010-08-20]
[{{cite news, url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-11033521 , title=BBC News — Bolivia declares emergency over forest fires , publisher=bbc.co.uk , date= 2010-08-20, access-date=2010-08-21, archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20100820190532/http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-11033521, archive-date= 20 August 2010 , url-status= live]
[{{cite web, url=http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/2010/08/2010820141754293369.html , title=Bolivia declares fires emergency - 2010 , publisher=Al Jazeera English , date=2010-02-24 , access-date=2010-08-21, archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20100820191621/http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/2010/08/2010820141754293369.html, archive-date= 20 August 2010 , url-status= live]
Bolivia Forest Fires, 2010
Bolivia Forest Fires, 2010