Chile forest fires: Troops join fight against worst fires in decades

The blazes destroyed more than
100,000 hectares of native forest

Some 1,200 troops and 500 firefighters have joined the effort to control Chile's worst forest fires in decades.

A state of emergency has been declared in a vast area south of the capital, Santiago.

The blazes began over a week ago and spread quickly in the dry and particularly hot summer that many South American countries are experiencing.

President Michelle Bachelet said she had asked for help from countries with experience of forest fires.

"The firefighters are doing all that is humanly possible," she said.

Read the BBC story - “Chile forest fires: Troops join fight against worst fires in decades.”

'One in six species extinction' - climate change in action

J

ames Dyke writes on The Conversation that “One in six species faces extinction as a result of climate change”.

James Dyke.

The lecturer in Complex Systems Simulation at University of Southampton says the Earth is on course to lose up to one in six of all its species, if carbon emissions continue as they currently are.

“This global extinction risk masks,” he says “very large regional variations. Up to a quarter of South American species may be doomed.”

“We are now detecting species loss due to this climate change and the message from Urban’s and other studies is unambiguous. We must leave most of the Earth’s fossil fuel reserves in the ground if we are to avoid consigning a significant fraction of its species to extinction,” he writes.