It was not a quiet end of the year for Alejandro Delfino livestock producer from La Pampa. For him and for a large number of his colleagues who saw how the fires advanced over their fields and they devoured everything in their path.
In the case of Delfino, the losses were large: In just three hours, the fire consumed 4,000 hectares of the 6,000 that the field hasand then advance on another 1,000 hectares further. The result, More than 80% of his relative’s establishment that he manages burned.
This situation for Delfino began on December 26 in the afternoonwhen lightning struck 40 kilometers from the field he owns 25 kilometers from the town of Jacinto Arauzin the southwest of La Pampa.
There, a fire started that a priori should not have worried him, since the wind was blowing north, but in the blink of an eye, He turned west and in just three hours he was at the door of his establishment.
“It entered through one end of the field and burned 4,000 hectares in three hours. It is a neat field, with the pits and firebreaks made, but the fire was too big,” Delfino told ClarÃn Rural.
But when it seemed that they had the fire under control that same Friday, another light was activatedtaking with him another 1,000 hectares. Of that total, Alejandro burned 700 to prevent the flames from spreading to his neighbor.
Delfino did not have to regret the loss of livestock, nor of the country house El Destino, which he has managed for 28 years and which has been property of his family since 1882, but he must move the animals to other establishments since “there is no grass”in addition to the fact that you will have to replace the 10,000 meters of fencing consumed by fire.
But beyond the fact that the fires in La Pampa are repeated year after year, Delfino maintained that The provincial government is not prepared to face them: “Every year it lights up, but they have nothing. They sent a fire hydrant plane on Monday, just one, when everything was already burned.”
The 54-year-old livestock producer highlighted the work of the area’s volunteer firefighters, “they turned 10 all the time”but criticized the bureaucracy that some of them must face in order to attend the places where the fires are occurring.
“From Friday to Tuesday we were putting out the fire. Only there I was able to go to fill up with diesel at the service station, where I met fire crews that came from more distant areas. There I told them ‘the fire started on Friday’ and they answered that because of the paperwork they had to do, they were not letting them leave in a timely manner,” Delfino added.
The fires in Jacinto Arauz are already under control, the producer assures, but there are other places in La Pampa where there are active outbreaks, such as in Santa Rosa or General Acha. However, he does not let his guard down. “The alarm will continue throughout the summer. It rained a lot in the past months and there was a lot of grass. Now there is no rain, the grass is dry and there is a lot of wind. “Hopefully there will be some tomorrow and the weekend.”
In the last hours, the Confederation of Rural Associations of Buenos Aires and La Pampa (Carbap) estimated that the fires in the province burned almost 100,000 hectares, to which were added some outbreaks in Buenos Aires.
The affected areas are Santa Isabel, La Passoril, Jacinto Arauz, Alpachiri, with Hucal, Rehell the Challenge in La Pampa and localities of the parties of Colonel Dorrego and Tres Arroyos in Buenos Aires territory.
“Currently, cwith almost 100,000 hectares burned in La Pampadifferential lines of credit that this type of catastrophe merits will be necessary to rebuild the fences, corrals, sleeves, etc. necessary to return to normal production,” they noted from Carbap.