The yellow alert of the National Meteorological Service regarding possible electrical storms for this Thursday and Friday put the staff of the Nahuel Huapi National Park on edge facing an increased risk of forest fires. The most immediate precedent was the fire in Lake Martin that got out of control and destroyed 6,400 hectares.
The mayor of the Nahuel Huapi park, Horacio Paradela, assured that today they have all kinds of resources to early fire detection.
It happens that in the last time, thunderstorms became more frequent in this region. and this phenomenon combined with drought and therefore, “the vegetation most predisposed to a fire.”
According to Paradela, today information is available from satellite images that account for possible lightning strikes. “There are different types. Some fall on the ground and others occur at the atmospheric level. In these cases, there is no direct fall,” he specified.
Through visual records or satellite images, monitoring is carried out from the park with observer planes or a drone service in order to confirm if that lightning caused a fire. Paradela explained that «that ignition event, in some cases, can be visualized at the moment or take several days«.
“Why? Because when lightning strikes a large tree, combustion occurs internally and the visualization of a possible column of smoke can occur days following that event,” she clarified.
Paradela highlighted hiring a drone service by the Ministry of Environment of the Nation to increase monitoring in different parts of the national park. “From identifying places where a phenomenon occurs, the drone approaches and makes specific overflights,” he said.
He pointed out that another visualization tool is through its own cameras installed in various parts of the park that are monitored by the Center for Information and Communication Technology (Cetic). Those same cameras made it possible to detect the Lake Martin fire on December 7, 2021, which was later confirmed by the park ranger.
«The genesis of all this was the radio station. In the main room, the monitors allow viewing large territories and detect events or behaviors in different places in the park. This display is timely because columns of smoke can be identified,” he said.
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