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Peru declares state of emergency situation in regions burnt by forest fires

Peruvian President Dina Boluarte on Wednesday declared a state of emergency situation in 3 areas impacted by devastating forest fires that have burned through swathes of the country's Andean and Amazonian croplands and left 16 dead.

The heavily forested northern areas of Amazonas, San Martin and Ucayali will be under the brand-new emergency measures, she said, following a number of demands from local authorities so more resources can be designated to combat the fires.

Forest fires are frequent in Peru in between August and November, mostly due to the burning of dry grasslands to expand agricultural frontiers and in some cases by land traffickers, according to information from the Ministry of the Environment.

Peru's prime minister had on Monday prompted farming neighborhoods to

stop burning grasslands

as countless hectares have increased in flames.

Ucayali's local guv had actually previously called for military aircraft to help firemens and volunteers put out the fires that have spread to rugged, hard-to-access surfaces and are damaging the location's palm and cocoa crops.

Satellite data analyzed by Brazil's space research firm earlier this month

registered a record 346,112 fire hotspots

so far this year across South America, exceeding the 2007 record of 345,322 hotspots in a data series that returns to 1998.

(source: Reuters)