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Bolivia: Wild Fires - Aug 2019

Status
Past
Countries
Bolivia
Disaster types
Wild Fire

The department of Santa Cruz declared as departmental emergency due to forest fires (August 16). President Morales welcomed voluntary international assistance that contributes to fire control (August 25)...Based on information received from the Ministry of Environment and Water (MMAyA) on August 26th , 521 thousand hectares are affected by fire forest in the Chiquitania region, Department of Santa Cruz, and 274 hectares of crops affected. Medias inform that the fires destroyed 738 thousand hectares. The presence of heat sources is 497. The greatest heat sources are located in the municipalities of Puerto Suarez (208), San Matías (88), Concepción (43) and San José de Chiquitos (41). (UNHCT Bolivia, 27 Aug 2019)

According to the Ministry of Environment and Water (MMAyA), as of 30 August, the ongoing forest fires in the eastern Bolivia department of Santa Cruz have affected 521,000 hectares of forest and 726,000 hectares of grassland, which in turn have affected 73 communities across 15 municipalities. There 1,917 affected families across 18 Santa Cruz municipalities. (OCHA, 2 Sep 2019)

18 municipalities are affected by the fires of which four were declared in emergency and six in disaster. The first rains of the season helped to control forest fires; However, three hotspots in Concepción were reactivated yesterday...Last weekend the sources of burning had been reduced to zero, but yesterday they rose to 47 and today 113 are registered, most of them are located in San Ignacio de Velasco and Concepción. More than 33 thousand bulbs accumulated so far this year....September closed with 11,884 hot spots, a historical record; 88% of heat sources focused on forest land and protected areas. According to the land use plan (PLUS), 58% of the heat sources were in forest land, 30% in protected areas, 4% in land for agrosilvopastoral use, 3% in agricultural land extensive, the other 3% in restricted use land and 2% in intensive agricultural use land.(UNHCT Bolivia, 14 Oct 2019)

Following the declaration of the results of the 20 October 2019 presidential elections, the country is experiencing social unrest. This situation has made it difficult to implement actions within the expected time period. All operational activities were suspended to protect the BRC response team and the target population, as well as due to the difficulty to travel between locations in the country. (IFRC, 20 Nov 2019)