Large forest fires are ravaging northwestern Bolivia and are described by experts as the worst in the country since the widespread fires of 2019.
During the year, a total of three million hectares have burned and the country’s president, Luis Arce, has appealed for international help. Firefighters from Venezuela, France, Chile and Brazil have been sent to the country to help.
Some who are badly affected are the indigenous people where the indigenous firefighter Wilson Peter Huari Chau has been fighting the forest fires for two months.
Water several kilometers away
But the local people fighting the fires have neither protective equipment nor medical help, and they have to walk several kilometers to fetch water for extinguishing.
– The animals of the forest have suffered a lot and that worries us the most. We are now here in the indigenous area of Bells Altura in Tacana where we are trying to put out the fires but it is almost impossible. We don’t have backpacks, face masks, we basically don’t have anything, says Chau Reuters.
Without any equipment or professional help, 39-year-old Chau and his neighbors have been working against the fires in San Buenaventura in western La Paz.
– No one can tell how our health has been affected by this in three or four years. But we are here every day and suffer with the heat and the flames because we love our country, the lands, the nature and the animals.
“Nothing left”
The population cooks their own food, which usually consists of small lunches because they cannot afford more.
– We eat a small lunch in the afternoon, but we don’t have much else. We get no service, says Chau.
Guillermo Medina from Tumpasa in northern Bolivia, says that everything is destroyed.
– Crops, vegetation, cuttings, coffee plantations, citrus plantations, banana plantations, everything has burned up. Now we have nothing left. We have been demanding food for several days because we have children and live on agriculture, he says.