Devastating Fires Roar Closer to Xingu National Park
9/1/98
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Title: Devastating Fires Roar Closer to Xingu National Park
Source: The Associated Press
Status: Copyrighted, contact source to reprint
Date: 9/1/98
SAO PAULO, Brazil (September 1, 1998 9:13 p.m. EDT
http://www.nandotimes.com) -- Devastating fires are quickly approaching
Brazil's largest Indian reservation, killing wildlife and livestock and
endangering the lives of thousands of Indians, officials said Tuesday.
The fires, which have been raging for two weeks, were less than three
miles from the edge of Xingu National Park, a 6.4 million-acre reserve
in Mato Grosso state, Federal Indian Bureau spokesman Roberto Lustosa
said by telephone.
The reservation is inhabited by 4,000 Indians of various tribes who
live in 17 villages.
On Tuesday, 40 firefighters were flown from Brasilia, the capital, to
the town of Sao Jose do Xingu, just outside the reservation, 930 miles
northwest of Sao Paulo.
There they will join 30 firefighters who have been battling the flames
since Monday.
"So far the fire has only destroyed grassland and underbrush but it is
dangerously close to the reservation and to virgin forest land,"
Lustosa said.
He did not know whether any villages were in immediate danger or if
there were plans to evacuate the Indians.
The government's environmental protection agency said the fires were
believed to have been started by farmers and ranchers who were
clearing their land to plant pastures and crops. The situation has
been aggravated by at least three months of drought.
The agency said it did not know how much land had been swept by the
fires. Press reports said some 370,000 acres have been destroyed.