‘The land will be left as ashes’: why Patagonia’s wildfires are almost impossible to stop

‘The land will be left as ashes’: why Patagonia’s wildfires are almost impossible to stop

Funding cuts, conspiracy theories and ‘powder keg’ pine plantations have seen January’s forest fires tear through Chubut in southern Argentina Lucas Chiappe had known for a long time that the fire was coming. For decades, the environmentalist had warned that replacing native trees in the Andes mountain range with highly flammable foreign pine was a recipe for disaster.In early January, flames raced down the Pirque hill and edged closer to his ho…