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Wildfires rage along tri-border region in Bolivia

23 August 2019
10729
2019-08-23 13:15

Units from the Bolivian Armed Forces on Thursday captured images of wildfires raging in the Rio Negro Bridge area along the shared tri-border region of Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia. The images showed a line of flames raging through the area as onlookers gathered on a road. Bolivian officials said they were awaiting the arrival of a firefighting plane in a last-ditch effort to tame the wildfires.

Wildfires raging in eastern Bolivia have burned more than 450,000 hectares, or roughly an area the size of the U.S. state of Delaware, officials in Santa Cruz province estimated.  The Santa Cruz province, where the wildfires have burned, is a critical area for agriculture and cattle-rearing. Thousands of wildfires are devastating the Brazilian Amazon, the world's largest rainforest. The blazes have nearly doubled this year compared to the same period in 2018, according to Brazilian officials, prompting global outrage.

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