Fires damage Chapultepec 3 times in 26 days

At the start of this 2023 —cut to January 26— the forest fires that were registered in 19 entities of the country consumed 2,351.4 hectares, which is equivalent to 2.9 times the entire extension of the Chapultepec Forest, which has 810 hectares.

According to a report by the National Forestry Commission (Conafor), 49 percent of these claims that have occurred in the first 26 days of the year have been caused by “illegal activities.”

Of the total territory damaged in these first 26 days of the year, 99 percent corresponds to vegetation in the herbaceous and shrubby strata and the remaining 1 percent to tree surface.

From the agency’s data it can be seen that 2022 was the year with the highest lethality of fires since 1998, with a rate of 109.4 hectares devastated by each event.

The figure represents a 21 percent increase in this indicator compared to 2021, when it was 90.0.

During the first 26 days of this month, the federal entity where the most fires have been registered is Jalisco, with 42 cases, followed by México City, with 28, Veracruz, with 15, Puebla with 14. The State of México, with 9, completes the list of the five where there was a higher incidence.

Meanwhile, the five states with the largest affected area are Jalisco, with 1,151.9 hectares, followed by Oaxaca with 310.9; in third place, Zacatecas, with 200.6 hectares, then Guerrerowith 198.9 and at the end Chihuahua, with 174.9 hectares.

Ten entities, Jalisco, México City, Veracruz, Puebla, State of México, Hidalgo, Tlaxcala, Oaxaca, Zacatecas and Nuevo León, concentrate 88 percent of the total fires registered nationwide.

Only during the last week of which the report speaks (from January 20 to 26 of this year), 39 forest fires occurred, distributed in the states of Chihuahua, Colima, Hidalgo, Zacatecas, Guanajuato, Veracruz, Tlaxcala, México, Jalisco. and México City.

The most recent large-scale fire is the one that started last Friday in the Cerro del Moral, located in the municipality of Salvador Escalante, in the avocado area of ​​Michoacán, which has not been reported for four days until the closing of this edition. been able to control it.

According to the Civil Protection reports of the entity, the fire has so far consumed more than 300 hectares of the aforementioned hill.

On January 27, the National Meteorological Service warned about the “medium high” risk of forest fires due to weather conditions in Baja California Sur, Sonora, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Sinaloa, Zacatecas, Jalisco, Aguascalientes, Michoacán, Guanajuato, State of México, México City, Morelos, Tlaxcala, Guerrero and Oaxaca.