Ecuador declares 60-day state of emergency to help battle wildfires

State of emergency to allow government to send more money, people to help bring blazes under control, minister says.

Ecuador has declared a 60-day state of emergency as the South American country has been hit by a severe drought and record wildfires that have razed large swaths of territory over the past weeks.

The Ecuadorian Secretariat for Risk Management (SNGR), the country’s emergency management agency, said in a statement on Monday that the state of emergency was declared “due to forest fires, water deficit and drought”.

It will allow the government to mobilise funds and send more people to help fight the blazes, Environment Minister Ines Manzano said.

Approved by the Ministry of Environment, Water and Ecological Transition, it will allow the freeing of funds to tackle the multifaceted crisis, the SNGR also said.

Authorities are battling 17 active wildfires, which have primarily affected the Azuay and Loja provinces in southern Ecuador. Another five fires have recently been brought under control, the secretariat said.

The blazes in the two provinces have affected about 10,200 hectares (25,204 acres) of forest and land.

Smoke rises as a wildfire burns in Quito, Ecuador, on September 25, 2024 [Karen Toro/Reuters]

In September, a severe wildfire threatened the country’s capital, Quito, blanketing it in smoke and ash. More than 2,000 firefighters, rescue workers and members of the military were called in to evacuate residents and fight the blaze.

Ecuador is experiencing its worst drought in 60 years, which has affected water levels in hydroelectric dams – a source of more than 70 percent of the country’s power.

Since October, the government has had to impose daily power cuts of up to 14 hours a day as it urged its 17 million people to save energy.

According to the Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS), which monitors wildfires around the world, Ecuador’s wildfire danger forecast is expected to increase from high to extreme in the affected provinces.

Record-setting blazes have broken out in other countries across South America as well, including Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, Bolivia and Peru, as the region has been hit by severe drought.

The US space agency NASA reported that plumes of smoke could be seen from space over several parts of the region from July to October as a result of the fires while rivers in the Amazon basin fell to record low levels last month.

The drought, which has steadily gotten worse since the latter half of 2023, has been linked to the El Nino weather phenomenon and to climate change.

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Al Jazeera and news agencies