Six Weeks On, Massive Fires In Argentine Patagonia Have Destroyed 110,000+ Acres Of Forest

The wildfires, among the worst to hit the drought-stricken Patagonia region in decades, have devastated more than 45,000 hectares of Argentina’s forests in the last month and a half, forcing the evacuation of thousands of residents and tourists. As of Monday (2 February), the inferno was still spreading. The crisis, with most of Argentina’s fire season still ahead, has reignited anger toward the country’s radical libertarian President Javier Milei whose harsh austerity drive in the last two years has slashed spending on programs and agencies that not only work to combat fires but also protect parks and prevent blazes from igniting and spreading in the first place.

“There has been a political decision to dismantle firefighting institutions,” says Luis Schinelli, one of 16 park rangers covering the 259,000 hectares of Los Alerces National Park. “Teams are stretched beyond their limits.” After coming to office on a campaign to rescue Argentina’s economy from decades of staggering debt, Milei slashed spending on the National Fire Management Service by 80 per cent in 2024 compared to the previous year, gutting the agency responsible for deploying brigades, maintaining air tankers, purchasing extra gear and tracking hazards.

The service faces another 71 per cent reduction in funds this year, according to an analysis of the 2026 budget by the Environment and Natural Resources Foundation, or FARN, an Argentine environmental research and advocacy group.

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After Trump announced last year that the US would leave the Paris climate agreement, Milei threatened to do the same. He boycotted UN climate summits and referred to human-caused climate change as a “socialist lie”, infuriating Argentines who understand that record-breaking heat and dryness, symptomatic of a warming planet, are fuelling the fires in Patagonia. “There’s a lot of anger building up. People here are very uncomfortable with our country’s politics,” says Lucas Panak, 41, who piled into a pickup truck with his friends last Thursday to fight the blazes enveloping the small town of Cholila after municipal firefighters were sent elsewhere.

Ed.- Emphasis added.

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https://www.euronews.com/green/2026/02/04/our-bodies-bear-the-cost-patagonias-firefighters-battle-blazes-and-austerity-in-ancient-fo