Brazil to send helicopters to battle Amazon fires

In this story:

• Fires cover a vast region
• Too little, too late?
• Related Stories and Sites

March 14, 1998
Web posted at: 7:21 p.m. EST (0021 GMT)

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (CNN) -- Brazilian officials plan to use 22 helicopters to combat devastating in the northwestern Amazon state of Roraima.

Crews will begin flying the choppers on Monday, working six-hour shifts for 20 days, said Consuelo Oliveira, spokeswoman for Gov. Neudo Campos.

Some scientists say they're doubtful the plan will work Ñ but in a state with only 80 firefighters and six firetrucks, the helicopters may be the best available option.

The federal government on Thursday approved spending $2.4 million to rent the firefighting helicopters from a Venezuelan oil company.

Fires cover a vast region

The fires, which have raged out of control since mid-January, cover about 22,000 square miles, an area slightly larger than Costa Rica.

So far, 12,000 head of cattle have died in Roraima and another 90,000, or a quarter of the state's herd, are in danger, said Oliveira. About $36 million in crops have been destroyed, and no rain is expected in the region for another month.

Flames illuminate the night sky in Roraima, while a vast smoke cloud, which spans more than 188 miles (300 kilometers), blots out the sun during the day.

Strong winds continue to push the flames deeper into the villages of the Yanomami Indians, considered the world's largest surviving Stone Age tribe. The reservation, which has already lost about 8 square miles of forest, is home to about 3,000 Yanomami.

Too little, too late?

Experts have little confidence that the helicopter fleet can do much to slow down the massive blaze, and local authorities say it could take a century for the region to recover.

"If it's standing forest, it's almost impossible to put it out, and the pasture fires cover such a huge area it would take an enormous effort to put them out," said David Nepstad, a scientist with the Woods Hole Research Center outside Boston.

About a fifth of the area in flames is forest, and the rest is pasture. Logging and slash-and-burn agriculture have combined to create conditions ripe for the disaster, scientists say. Also, it is Brazil's worst drought in three decades.

"This is beginning of a pattern that is going to be much more common," said Nepstad, who studies fires in the Amazon rain forest.

Correspondent Ulrika Nilsson and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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