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In late January, South America panicked after the publication of a heat map released by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which showed that Venezuela, especially in the plains and Andean regions, was experiencing a “thermal anomaly on the ground”. Is experiencing. , an approach to fire or potential fire points.”
Walter Obregón // Correspondent lapatilla.com
In the country, in areas where there are agricultural production units, heat is used to burn fields as a method of preparing the land, excluding the use of tractors and harrows to reduce costs before sowing seeds. In.
This practice has intensified over the past 20 years due to the high prices of machine hours, which prevents a large number of Venezuelan growers from planning and paying, as profits from the sale of crops brought to market are low. National market.
Uncertain fuel conditions also force producers to idle machines, trucks, tractors, and other means of work in the field, justifying the implementation of older strategies to accomplish their tasks, including burning, although these can be controlled in many cases.
However, other fires are also occurring in Venezuela, over which there is no control, and where specialized organizations to mitigate them, such as firefighters and civil protection, are facing an increase in outbreaks occurring in different locations. Are not adequately equipped to take action. Area. by country.
Whether under control or not, fires affect the increase in temperatures and in addition to the El Nino phenomenon the concern is who is in charge of extinguishing the fires to prevent environmental pollution that generally affects citizens, who Also enters a season of respiratory problems. Similarly, people go out into the street, hiding themselves from the sun with umbrellas, and do not stop sweating “too much” due to the extreme heat.
NASA map
Fire Information Resource Management System (FIRMS) provides access to satellite imagery, hotspot/active fires and related products to identify the location, extent and intensity of wildfire activity with minimal latency. Its page description reads: www-earthdata-nasa-gov,
FIRMS is a NASA platform that allows to verify the number and extent of fires, providing geospatial data, products and services to support the fire management community in general with its tools and applications and Provides information to the public.
For the United States and Canada, real-time active fire detection is available. In the rest of the world, global data is available within three hours of satellite observation.
Hot spots in Venezuela
To find out what was happening from NASA’s map at the end of January, lapatilla.com pulled data from social networks with a master’s degree in Water Resources Planning and Engineering at Simon Bolivar University (USB).
“From January 1 to 29, 9,113 heat sources have been detected in Venezuela,” said Gil Solórzano on X (formerly Twitter), who noted that all states except Falcon, Miranda and the Capital District are above average. Those who are above 100% outbreak in the first month of the year.
Similarly, he reported that 2,434 outbreaks have been recorded in isolated states, accounting for 26.7%; 1,586 (17.4%) in Guarico; According to these data from engineer Alfredo Gil, Bolivar accounts for 68.3% of the national total, with 1,307 (14.3%) and Anzoátegui with 901 (10.0%).
“This hot current is the result of the loss of more than seven million hectares of natural cover that Venezuela has suffered in the last 40 years,” independent Venezuelan journalist Fritz Sanchez said in X, citing a report by MapsBiomass.
On February 5, journalist Rosmina Suárez Pina wrote on social networks, she said after talking to engineer Alfredo Gil Solórzano.
Fire: nothing new
On August 19 last year, the Minister of Internal Relations, Justice and Peace, Remigio Ceballos, said that “Venezuelan firefighters have extinguished more than 13,000 fires in the country so far in 2023,” meaning the country has spent most of its have taken. months in flames
According to official figures, the senior official said 6,854 of the total fires were vegetation, as well as 4,000 debris, 1,430 structures, 1,118 vehicles and 535 electrical fires, Efe reported at the time.
Calienta from the NGO La Tierra has some thoughts about “arson in Venezuela”, asking a question: “Why would someone set fire to a forest?” The answer is simple: “To achieve short-term economic benefits.”
For this organization of environmentalists, “Wildfire season in Venezuela is a recurring phenomenon, but in recent years, there has been a worrying increase in fires caused by humans.”
Puntuali quotes Caliente from La Tierra: “Some of the main causes of arson fires in Venezuela are illegal logging, agriculture and livestock.” Similarly, he assures that “farmers and pastoralists use fire to clear fields and prepare land for planting or for grazing animals” and describes this method as “dangerous and uncontrollable, because fire can spread rapidly. “, causing the destruction of large areas of forests and jungles.”
Arson fires not only affect fauna and flora but also affect human health. Calienta, from the NGO La Tierra, explains that “burning biomass produces large amounts of toxic gases and fine particles, increasing the risk of respiratory and cardiovascular diseases in the surrounding population.”
Furthermore, it is clear as environmental experts that fires release large amounts of carbon dioxide, which contributes to climate change and its negative effects on the planet.
organization without endowment
By force of will and practically risking the lives of their officers, firefighters and civil defense are attacking the vegetation fires spreading in many states of the country, but these organizations do not have the necessary resources to make the work more effective. There are no equipment. And quick to complete.
“Everything should start with the organization of the Environment Ministry, with environmental brigades, which can be said not to exist,” said a civil protection official in the country’s plains, where most of the fires occur. Or well hidden.” Frequently.
“Fire brigade units are not in a position to operate, and knowing that the People’s Guard is one of the components that has water tankers that can be used to extinguish fires, when cooperation is required, trucks There is no diesel in it. Or some other problem appears,’commented the official consulted by lapatilla.com.
“We used clappers (a thick rubber tool with a wooden handle, with which they hit the flames until they go out), machetes, shovels and that’s how we made firebreak paths to stop the fires “We have dedicated ourselves to dealing with these emergencies moving forward,” he explained.
With these working conditions, officers are at risk every time a vegetation fire occurs. Many pray that these incidents are not too big, as happened recently in the Valparaiso region (Chile), because due to the lack of specialized equipment they could become an uncontrollable situation with large material and human losses.
