Brazil to Fight Fires in Amazon State

www.grandforks.com Posted on Tue, Mar. 11, 2003 Associated Press

BRASILIA, Brazil - Soldiers from the Brazilian army will be deployed to help fight wild fires spreading out of control in the country's northernmost Amazon state, federal officials said Tuesday.

The federal government is sending three helicopters and three fire fighting brigades to Roraima state, on Brazil's border with Venezuela and Guyana, the country's Environment Ministry said in a statement.

The troops will aid the 500 firefighters already working to contain some 86 fires that so far have claimed nearly 40 square miles of forest and scrub land.

Most of the fires were started by farmers and spread out of control because of dry conditions in the region.

Slash and burn agriculture is a common practice in much of the Brazilian Amazon, because burning jungle brush to replenish the region's poor soil is cheaper than fertilizer.

In 1998, wild fires in Roraima claimed more than 1,150 square miles of forest and scrub land.

The 1998 fires drew international attention after spreading into the Yanomami Indian reservation in the western part of the state.

It was not immediately clear if the reservation was threatened by this year's fires.