The Government extended the igneous emergency until January 13, 2024 in order to “continue to adopt urgent measures” and to convene provincial authorities and organizations involved “with the main objective of stopping the fires and starting immediately with the restoration of the affected areas.”
The measure was taken through the Decree 2/2023 published this Thursday in the Official Gazette with the signatures of President Alberto Fernández, the Chief of Staff, Juan Manzur; and the Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development, Juan Cabandié.
The emergency was initially adopted on January 11, 2022 but, as argued in the recitals of the new decree, the conditions related to the spread of forest fires in the country suggest the need to extend it for one year.
Based on this norm, “the joint and coordinated work between the competent national, provincial and local organizations will continue to be streamlined and simplified, under the premises of speed, economy, simplicity and efficiency that should govern the actions to deal with such an emergency.” magnitude, promoting the adoption of the measures that are necessary to attend to the pre-suppression and fight of fires imminently, the restoration of the affected areas and the prevention of new outbreaks”.
In the face of recurring fires
The decree warns about the “adverse outlook” posed by climate change with prolonged droughts, which “they extend and repeat themselves recurrently during the summer months in recent years, causing the fire season to be no longer just seasonal; finding this situation favored by human activities and weather and environmental conditions.
And in another section of the recitals he remarked that “since the risk of exceeding the response capacity of the media involved in fighting firethe criticality of the situation and the imminent danger of an environmental catastrophe, it becomes necessary, imperative and convenient to extend the declaration of Igneous Emergency throughout the national territory”.
And he adds that it is carried out “in order to continue adopting urgent measures and convene with great urgency the agencies involved and the provincial authorities with the main objective of stopping the fires and immediately beginning the restoration of the affected areas.”
“Climate change is an undeniable reality with respect to which mitigation actions are fundamental and must be carried out urgently since The risk and magnitude of forest fires are increasing and they are lasting longer each time. and are associated with interface type fires; that is to say that places close to urban areas are generated or covered and for this reason they are increasingly dangerous, with devastating consequences”, underlines the norm.
