More Wildfires: Patagonia is Burning. Again
The ecological crisis deepens in the global south
Wildfires are nothing new. However, they are becoming increasingly intense and frequent because of our changing climate due to the release of man-made greenhouse emissions into the atmosphere. That in turn creates an environment ripe for these disasters to happen, by, for example, the reduction of moisture and water availability in soil and plants.
As with the L.A. wildfires this January, these events can be ignited by lighting, incidental fires (bad camping activity for example), or intentionally to clear land for market and real estate business. But our hunter-gatherer ancestors and contemporary indigenous communities intentionally used fire too, to clear the land in order to catch fauna, making passing through a difficult terrain easier, and for the controlled burning necessary to avoid disaster. Which raises the prosect: can we learn to live with, and control, fire again?
On the 25th of December 2024, a fire started in Argentina in the Nahuel Huapi National Park (NHNH), caused by lighting according to the authorities. The fire spread quickly, and by 18th of January 2025 there had been 4,500 hectares of forest consumed. The NHNH authorities declared the event “out of control”.
But we do have the ability to control, monitor, prevent, and turn off wildfires when the staff and equipment are sufficient and the resources are correctly destined. So, how are wildfires being managed in the Argentine Patagonia? And what does the future look like for the Patagonian forests, and other fire prone regions?
How to ignite a natural disaster
When the NHNH authorities declared the latest event “out of control”, I couldn’t help but think “Well, you can’t have that much control when the whole operation is composed of 92 brigadiers and one plane”.
This is a laughable amount of staff. For Argentina, scientists estimate that across all 50 nature-protected areas, 700 brigadiers are needed. For reference, the NHNH is the 2nd largest national park in the country (717,261 hectares), only surpassed by The Glaciers National Park. The firefighting team is clearly insufficient.
This is not a priority for our new government, more concerned about the stock market and cleaning big chunks of land for real estate speculation, defending this political strategy by arguing that is the best for the economy, and therefore, for the people.
Argentina, like every Latin American economy, functions under the exports of commodities, which in Argentina’s case are predominantly represented by the agricultural and mining sectors. This generates a primarization of the economy, which is subjected to the pulses of the global market. Argentina saw a positive increase in GDP during 2003–2012, under the increasing demand for agricultural goods (mostly soybean and its derivates) by China, which elevated it to being the third exporter of agricultural goods to the country.
However, this trend can change rapidly. When other competitors arrive (such as Brazil, the United States, and Australia), these agricultural goods prices decrease, and in turn, Argentina is left with a huge deficit.
The Argentinian industrial sector, inefficient in its incapacity to export to the global market, lived under subsidies by the agricultural sector, the competitive sector of the economy. What is the answer of the current government to solve this problem? Letting the industrial sector go bankrupt, therefore increasing unemployment, lowering the median salary, and diminishing the living conditions of the working people.
This comes at hand with a structural change of the state, reducing its regulatory capacity, and leaving the environmental, economic, and social issues — like, say, wildfire protection — to the market. Reducing the control of the population on their land, allowing and encouraging companies to pollute rivers, and deforestation, are all supported by a president and a state's position of denying climate change.
During the wildfire, the government did not renew the contracts of more than 500 brigadiers and has even dismissed 10 as the flames intensified.
As the current vice president stated during the campaign: “The purpose of national parks is to create public positions for political activists”. She says that, in practice, “preservation is not ensured” for public parks, since, in her mind, they comehow create environmental activism.
Meanwhile the brigades and park rangers are risking their life to preserve small pockets (in the scale of total surface area) of natural, and not so protected, land. And to do so they are paid a salary that is considered poor in Argentina.
Summer after summer, the story repeats again
As previously said, wildfires are nothing new. However, if you pay enough attention, news about these events are more common year after year.
During the past 5–6 years, every summer has seen an intense wildfire in the Patagonia region, serious enough to be a main topic of discussion in the media.
In 2024, in just two months, wildfires consumed more than 8,000 hectares in the NHNH and Los Alerces National Park. The causes keep repeating: during the summer, the land is more prone to fires extending, due to dry vegetation, helped by the high temperatures and intense winds. As well as the Patagonia region, wildfires now occur across all states, particularly in the Chaco and Corrientes provinces.
The inefficient government, prone to “liberalize” the economy, have caused immense pressure on the land. The media is controlled in a way that the polarization of politics creates a kind of two parallel universes. The eternal struggle between Peronists and Liberals. But there is one subject they both agree on: destroying the environment.
When fire hits home
The current wildfire in the NHNH coincides with another intensive wildfire occurring in southern Patagonia Epuyen, Chubut province.
This wildfire has already consumed 2,700 hectares of Patagonian forest, initiated by “undetermined causes”. Some speculations, which are based on scientific data, have pointed to the fact that one of the main drivers of wildfires in Patagonia are the private pine plantations, combined with the increasing lack of water sources, high temperatures, and overall climate disruptions.
Pine species destined for plantations are introduced species that have a high reproduction, and growth rate before and after wildfires. Additionally, pines compete with local flora, disproportionately using water sources from the soil, generating a dark, and easily flammable environment. Some term pine plantations in Patagonia as “potential bonfire”.
Luckily, this wildfire is more controlled, mainly because of the 500 brigadiers working in the area. But 50 families lost their homes due to the wildfires. Many suspected these were intentional fires for real estate business land-grabs. In contrast with the L. A wildfires, where millionaires saved their homes by paying private firefighters, in Chubut, the majority of the population can’t afford to make ends meet.
A more thorough analysis of these communities should be made in order to be more prepared for future wildfires.
What’s next?
We should be pessimistic in theory, but optimistic in practice. The current state of environmental protection in Argentina doesn’t seem to have a promising future. The intensification of extractivist activities will eventually increase the collateral damage of climate change, by a higher frequency of droughts, wildfires, floods, and heat waves.
This economic model will generate extraordinary wealth, distributed between a few companies, with the vast majority of working people having to suffer the consequences in their everyday lives.
In Patagonia, local communities have struggled for decades for their voice to be heard, fighting against a state with other interests on the agenda. The wave of environmental activism could see a huge increase and impact in the next few years, as wildfires become ever more frequent.
The contradictory policies posed by this government are going to eventually become apparent to all, and that is when working people will have to find better solutions in how to practically and economically solve our environmental issues. There’s still hope.
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