Last year, Jalisco acquired a dubious distinction: first place in fires among Mexico’s 32 states. This year, it finds itself protecting its title with room to spare.
According to the Nation Forestry Commission (Conafor), 407 fires have been registered so far this year in Jalisco, conflagrations that have burned approximately 87,000 hectares of land, lapping the nearest competition. Second place thus far has been occupied by the state of Oaxaca, with 40,489 hectares blackened by flames.
An area where Jalisco lags behind the competition is in the duration of its infernos. With an average of 25 hours and 43 minutes per fire, it places third behind Tamaulipas and Campeche.
Further data from Conafor breaks down the types of flora affected by the fires: 3,469 hectares of adult trees; 590 hectares of new growth trees and the remaining 83,000 hectares of grass and shrubs.
It requires minimal strain to figure out why Jalisco is so fire prone. The most obvious non-human culpable parties are high temperatures and plentiful combustible tinder. But Magdalena Ruiz Mejia, the head of the Jalisco Secretaria de Medio Ambiente (Department of the Environment), adds a few more suspects to the rogue’s gallery.
“These fires demonstrate that our investments [in fire prevention] don’t come to much when set against the forces of climate change, lack of water, dryness, and a generally reckless use of fire by the populace,” says Ruiz.
The statistics of human error (and maleficence) she puts forth are discouraging: 19 percent of fires were started by campers who left their campfires unextinguished upon breaking camp; 12 percent were caused by people flicking their cigarette butts, and a whopping 24 percent were started intentionally by people looking to repurpose their land. In the end, over half of the fires reported from January to May were preventable.
In the coming rainy months, it’s hoped that nature will quickly render the problem moot, perhaps to be replaced by other dangerous annoyances, such as flooding and mudslides.