Wildfire Spreads Through Tierra Verde's Protected Forest

The smoke arrived before the flames. On July 12, residents of the municipality of Puerto Iguazú noticed a grey haze settling over the town in the late afternoon, the smell of burning wood growing stronger as the day wore on. By evening, the Tierra Verde Regional Fire Service confirmed that a fire had begun in the protected forest zone 22 kilometres to the northwest, in an area of mixed hardwoods and native pine that had been designated for sustainable timber harvesting under a federal conservation compact signed in 2018.

Now, thirteen days later, the fire has consumed 8,400 hectares and shows no sign of slowing. Regional authorities have evacuated residents from four municipalities in the fire's projected path. The blaze has become the largest forest fire in Tierra Verde's recorded history, surpassing a 1987 fire that burned 6,200 hectares in the northern districts.

The fire has exposed a critical gap in Tierra Verde's emergency response capacity. The region has only two fully equipped fire stations, both located in San Vicente, more than 80 kilometres from the burning forest. The nearest municipal fire service, in Puerto Iguazú, operates with seven personnel and a single truck. When the fire began, the regional service requested emergency support from the Federal Civil Protection Agency in Meridian, a request that was acknowledged but not acted upon for seventy-two hours.