The fire enters Noel Kempff Park, and support is requested to extinguish the fires in Madidi.

 The green lungs are suffering from the flames that have already consumed six million hectares of forests. On Monday, help was requested to aid Madidi, and now aircraft are being deployed in Noel Kempff.

While residents in northern La Paz are awaiting help to extinguish the flames in Madidi, a fire has been reported in the border area with Brazil in Santa Cruz's Noel Kempff Mercado Park.

The Incident Command in San Ignacio de Velasco has deployed aircraft to address this emergency.

Juan Xavier Pérez, from the Bolivia-Brazil Binational Incident Command, reported that a fire is affecting Noel Kempff Mercado Park near the Brazilian border. Fires have also been reported in other areas of San Ignacio de Velasco, such as Porvenir, Monte Cristo Tiquín, Cerro Pelado, Picaflor, and Florida.

He noted that priority is being given to aerial firefighting efforts in Porvenir and Noel Kempff, where water drops are being carried out. Aerial operations are also underway in Florida, the park's gateway.

He explained that aerial work is prioritized due to the high risk of sending ground brigades. However, in another area, sailors have been deployed to carry out cooling operations after the water drops.

Meanwhile, in Ixiamas, residents are organizing to head to the Tequeje area, one of the regions near Madidi Park affected by the flames.

"People are urgently needed, and there's transportation to the fire site. Please bring buckets, containers, rakes, and fire extinguishers," reads one of the messages circulated on social media.

Ruth Alipaz, a representative of the National Coordinator for the Defense of Indigenous Peasant Territories and Protected Areas (Contiacap), called on authorities to provide support and stop the disaster.

“Madidi National Park is burning in various areas. From Ixiamas, from a recently opened path below Undumo, and this Sunday another fire started by the Tequeje River,” Alipaz warned.

Legal Actions

According to a report from the legal department of the Forest and Land Control and Social Oversight Authority (ABT), four individuals have been sentenced, and five are in preventive detention for causing forest fires in the country.

“We have four convictions and five people in preventive detention, two of them caught in the act this weekend during an aerial patrol in the Guayaros forest reserve,” explained Robin Justiniano from ABT.

He reported that 117 criminal cases have been initiated, 69 involving identified individuals and 48 involving suspected perpetrators.

Additionally, 350 administrative processes have been initiated, 194 on private properties and 156 in communities. Of the total, 190 cases were opened in the Santa Cruz municipalities of San Matías, San Ignacio de Velasco, Concepción, and Guarayos.

In Santa Cruz

The Departmental Emergency Operations Center (COED) reported 26 forest fires in 13 municipalities on Tuesday. The most affected are Concepción, San Ignacio de Velasco, Roboré, Urubichá, and San José de Chiquitos.

According to the Early Warning System for Forest Fires (Satif), there are ten fire complexes forming large fire lines.

Jhonny Rojas, COED coordinator, detailed that 563 forest firefighters, volunteers, park rangers, and rescuers are deployed across the various municipalities. “We also have the support of the Army and Air Force, which are conducting water drops in critical areas,” Rojas stated.

Last week, the Vice Minister of Civil Defense, Juan Carlos Calvimontes, estimated that all fires could be extinguished within ten days; however, emergencies still persist.

In Beni

The fires in the Beni department have forced the suspension of operations at the airports in Trinidad and Rurrenabaque.

In official statements, Bolivian Air Navigation and Airports (Naabol) reported that both takeoffs and landings at those airports have been suspended until visibility conditions improve.

For aircraft to take off and land, at least 1,600 meters of visibility are required, but the current visibility is only 1,000 meters.