Day Two of the Fire

Day two of the fire could be called Death on the Mountain!


On July 24, 2006 I walked around the corner from our house expecting to see the fire was out. However it had gone around the mountain to the other side as well as over the top and was still burning furiously.


Also, a second fire was set criminaly in Fonte Platina, an area on the south edge of town. This second fire joined up with the first on the mountain top.



Columns of smoke were visible all day!



Smoke billowed up over the mountain looking worse the closer I got.



I could see the scorched earth up the mountain behind the houses where I had watched the fire last night. You can see more smoke as the fire burns around the mountain.



The fire was also still burning to the south very vigorously. I could hear gunfire as the farmers were shooting severely injured livestock and wildlife early in the morning.



I went around to the backside of the mountain to see how badly the fire had burned the brush.



Later we drove along the highway and here you can see Urubus floating over the burn looking for dead and dying wildlife up on top of the mountain.


I could see the fire burning furiously around the Ostrich Farm on top of the mountain. It seemed nobody was fighting the fire. At least I couldn't see anyone up there from the highway. But the farmers and their neighbours were fighting valiantly to save their livestock and farms.


The fire burned for another day. We learned two Ostriches had died. pigs, cattle and numerous wildlife too. The fire had travelled several kms before it finally died out. It burned 30 alqueires or 360.6 acres

A couple days later the newspapers reported there would be an investigation because this fires had been set deliberately. As of Nov 15 we have heard no further news about the investigation. See the news report at the end of the BLOG. "What the Press Wrote".


Photos by Urso Branco