Colombia sent support to Ecuador on Sunday to control the country’s largest forest fire in recent years, which has destroyed homes and crops of community members after 10 days of activity.
A Colombian Air Force aircraft departed for Ecuador with specialized firefighting equipment, including water discharge systems from the air and a tank with a storage capacity of 10,000 gallons, the institution reported in a statement. In addition, five officers who are familiar with new firefighting systems traveled to the neighboring country.
Peru had previously joined in the firefighting efforts with personnel, two aircraft and two helicopters.
The fire started as a result of agricultural burning on a hill in the rural area of Quilanga, 670 kilometers south of the capital, in the province of Loja. It has been fought for ten days amid high temperatures and strong gusts of wind.
According to the Risk Management Secretariat, by Sunday the flames had consumed 4,856 hectares of forest, scrubland and crops. Sixty families have been affected.
The family of Carmen Salinas, a local farmer, is among those affected by the fire, which consumed her home, killed her animals and destroyed her crops, she told The Associated Press.
“We lost 10 hectares of coffee, two sheds with about 6,000 chickens,” said the 60-year-old woman, who also owes the bank $60,000. She hopes that the authorities will help the farmers in the area, whose livelihood is mainly coffee farming.
Salinas also called for control over agricultural burning, which is usually carried out by producers to clear their land.
“It cannot be done in August, where the winds are too strong,” he said. “All the inhabitants are affected in the coffee crops and the economy of the town; I don’t know how we are going to cope.”
The province of Loja has been the most affected by forest fires in the last decade, with more than 45,000 hectares of vegetation consumed.
According to official information, there are 25 active forest fires in Ecuador.
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