Ecuador capital ‘under attack’ from five wildfires

Army soldiers help firefighters to combat a bushfire on a hill in Quito on September 25, 2024. Agence France-Presse

QUITO — Firefighters battled five blazes on the outskirts of Ecuador’s capital Quito on Wednesday, as wildfires continue to rip through South American nations turned into tinderboxes by droughts linked to climate change.

Some 2,000 firefighters, military personnel and rescue workers have been deployed in Quito to try to contain the blazes and bring residents in affected areas to safety.

So far at least six people have been injured including two children and two firefighters, and around 100 families evacuated from their homes.

READ: Smoke from Brazil fires clouds major cities, neighboring countries

From Ecuador to Brazil, many Latin American nations are gripped by their worst drought in decades, fueling a blistering fire season that has set residents and governments on edge.

“Quito is under attack,” the city’s security chief Carolina Andrade told reporters.

Authorities in Ecuador believe that a fire that broke out Tuesday in the east of the city and swathed it in huge plumes of smoke was started by arsonists.

On Wednesday, they announced the arrest of a 19-year-old man caught with a gallon of fuel.

READ: How climate change contributes to wildfires like Chile’s

Pablo Munoz, Quito’s mayor, vowed Wednesday to hunt down the perpetrators of the “terrorist” fires.

The emergency led President Daniel Noboa to cancel his speech at the UN General Assembly and return home from New York on Tuesday.

‘We lost everything’

Schools suspended classes and government offices ordered remote work due to poor air quality in the city of around three million people.

“I wanted to save something, but we didn’t get anything,” said Alexis Condolo, a 23-year-old mechanic whose home burned down.

“We found the house in ashes. We lost everything. We only have a few clothes left.”

Because of the smoke, “I had to sleep with a mask and wet wipes on top” of the mask, Claudio Otalima, an 82-year-old retiree, told AFP.

Quito has been battling forest fires for three weeks.

In Brazil, fires have consumed millions of acres (hectares) of forest and farmland in recent weeks, and smoke has clouded major cities such as Brasilia, Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, with fumes at times wafting across the border to Argentina and Uruguay.

The Copernicus atmosphere monitoring service said Monday that fires in the Amazon and Pantanal wetlands were the worst in almost two decades.

The dry spell — which scientists have linked to climate change — has also sent fires burning out of control in Colombia, Bolivia, Argentina, Paraguay and Peru.

The situation across the continent on Monday saw Amnesty International urge leaders to do more to abandon fossil fuels and transform the industrial agricultural model.

“South American leaders must, more than ever, take urgent action to prevent climate catastrophe that could have irreversible consequences for humanity and for the planet,” Amnesty International said.

Power crisis

Ecuador is facing its worst drought in six decades.

As a result, the country, which depends on hydroelectric power, is facing severe energy shortages and has implemented rolling blackouts and put 20 of its 24 provinces on red alert.

Over the past year, 3,302 forest fires have been recorded, burning 37,808 hectares (93,400 acres) of vegetation.

Fourteen people have been injured and 44,742 livestock have died, according to a report published Tuesday by the Risk Secretariat.