By the A.M. Costa Rica staff

Officials of the National System of Conservation Areas announced Tuesday the start of the permanent alert system for the 2020 forest fire season.

Grettel Vega-Arce, is the director of the agency known as SINAC for its acronym in Spanish. This plan will increase the operational actions of daily fire detection alert through the use of satellite images, activation of permanent watchtowers and land and aerial patrols, among other strategies, she said.

The agency has more than 950 people trained, including forest firefighters, its own employees, park rangers and volunteers, to carry out prevention work along with the country for the extinction of forest fires within the national parks.

According to the agency, the teams have 618 volunteers of which 165 are women. There are seven brigades with 64 forest firefighters and a team of more than 250 park rangers.

Specialists will visit the communities to inform the population about precautionary measures to avoid fires. A prevention campaign also will be developed in the media, the agency said.

According to specialists, since December of last year, the country began cleaning vegetation using controlled fires. This has caused during January three forest fires near  some protected wild areas, said SINAC.  Sugar cane growers routinely burn off the vegetation in their fields to make cutting the cane easier and to eliminate dangerous pests. Smoke from the burning each year usually generates complaints form expats.

According to the data provided by the organization, the months of March and April are the most critical for forest fires to occur due to the increase in dryness, the practices of cleaning land with controlled fires, high winds, high temperature and low humidity.

From a technical point of view, the country will have more critical seasons each year due to the effects of climate change, which is modifying the structure and conditions of the plants making it easier burn, and in addition there is a large accumulation of biomass, said SINAC in its statement.

Officials remind the population that only with the authorization of the Ministry of Agriculture, controlled fires can be an instrument for cleaning properties of unwanted vegetation.

"It is forbidden to burn in empty lots, or make fires in protected wild areas," said SINAC in its statement.












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