Buenos Aires Is Burning: Smoke Is Everywhere
Okay, so it's not quite as dramatic as the subject line would suggest. But it is VERY smoky in Buenos Aires today. Seems that hundreds of thousands of acres of land are being cleared to the West and North of here (primarily along Route 9 (the route we took to Cordoba) from what we can understand with our limited Spanish) to make room for grazing cattle.
The land that was once used for cattle to graze is apparently now being used for Soybean production, so they need to have more land available for use.
Not really sure how all that works, or who controls what happens in the provinces outside of Buenos Aires. There is a 400 year old history of the provinces not really getting along with the city/province of Buenos Aires, so the provinces may not care that much if their smoke is engulfing Buenos Aires. Difficult to say really.
One thing is for sure. Carrie and I don't smoke, but our apartment smells like someone smokes, and the visibility here is pretty poor at the moment. The smoke got REALLY thick last night, and has done some clearing today, and hopefully the fires will die down so that we can be without smoke once again.
(More interesting news is coming soon from the variety of things we've been doing over the past few days, but just thought we'd update you on the latest in Buenos Aires.)
Bloomberg has the only English-language article I've been able to find on the smoke in Buenos Aires at this point.
| It's better now, but basically, from what I've been able to draw from a translation from the announcement from the Argentina National Weather Service, the smoke will get bad again tonight before getting better tomorrow. | |
| Zona de cobertura: SUR DE ENTRE RIOS. RIO DE LA PLATA INTERIOR Y DELTA DEL PARANA. ESTE DE BUENOS AIRES. CAPITAL FEDERAL. Fenómeno: POR REDUCCION DE VISIBILIDAD POR LA PRESENCIA DE HUMO Situación: SEGUN LAS ULTIMAS IMAGENES DE SATELITE SE OBSERVA HUMO SOBRE EL SUR DE ENTRE RIOS Y EN LAS ISLAS DEL DELTA DEL PARANA, EXTENDIENDOSE, LUEGO HACIA EL ESTE SOBRE EL RIO DE LA PLATA INTERIOR AFECTANDO LA COSTA URUGUAYA Y LA COSTA BONAERENSE. EN ESTA ULTIMA ZONA ADEMAS SE OBSERVAN ALGUNOS BANCOS DE NIEBLA QUE REDUCEN AUN MAS LA VISIBILIDAD (200 MTS REPORTADOS EN SAN FERNANDO). CON MENOR DENSIDAD, LA NUBE DE HUMO SE EXTIENDE MAS HACIA EL ESTE SOBRE EL RIO DE LA PLATA EXTERIOR.
SE ESTIMA QUE DURANTE ESTA MAÑANA, EL VIENTO TENDERA A ROTAR AL OESTE SOPLANDO CON VELOCIDADES ENTRE 10 Y 15KM/H LO QUE UBICARA LA NUBE DE HUMO SOBRE EL SUR DE ENTRE RIOS, EL RIO DE LA PLATA Y EL SUR DE URUGUAY. EL VIENTO TENDERA A DISMINUIR DE INTENSIDAD HACIA LA NOCHE. LUEGO PREVALECERA NUEVAMENTE DEL SECTOR NORTE POR LO QUE, DE CONTINUAR ACTIVOS LOS FOCOS DE INCENDIO, EL HUMO AFECTARIA OTRA VEZ AL NORESTE DE LA PROVINCIA DE BUENOS AIRES REDUCIENDO LA VISIBILIDAD. NO SE DESCARTA QUE EN LA MADRUGADA DEL VIERNES VUELVAN A FORMARSE ALGUNOS BANCOS DE NIEBLA. EN ESTA ZONA LO QUE PODRIA RESULTAR EN UNA MAYOR DISMINUCION DE LA VISIBILIDAD. | Zone of cover: SOUTH FROM AMONG RIOS. RIO OF THE INTERIOR SILVER AND DELTA OF THE PARANA. THIS OF BUENOS AIRES. FEDERAL CAPITAL. Phenomenon: BY REDUCCION OF VISIBILITY BY THE Situation SMOKE PRESENCE: SEGUN you FINALIZE THEM IMAGES OF SATELITE SMOKE ON THE SOUTH is OBSERVED FROM AMONG RIOS AND IN THE ISLANDS OF THE DELTA OF THE PARANA, being EXTENDED, THEN TOWARD THE EAST ON THE RIO OF THE INTERIOR SILVER AFFECTING THE Uruguayan COAST AND THE COAST of Buenos Aires. IN THIS it FINALIZES ZONE ADEMAS SOME FOGBANKS they are OBSERVED THAT REDUCE EVEN BUT THE VISIBILITY (200 MTS REPORTED IN SAN FERNANDO). WITH SMALLER DENSITY, THE CLOUD OF SMOKE EXTENDS BUT TOWARD THE EAST ON THE RIO OF THE EXTERIOR SILVER.
IT IS ESTIMATED THAT DURING THIS MORNING, THE WIND TRADESMAN TO ROTATE TO THE WEST BLOWING WITH VELOCITIES BETWEEN 10 AND 15KM/H WHAT LOCATED THE CLOUD OF SMOKE ON THE SOUTH FROM AMONG RIOS, THE RIO OF THE SILVER AND THE SOUTH OF URUGUAY. THE WIND TRADESMAN TO DIMINISH OF INTENSITY TOWARD THE NIGHT. THEN PREVAIL AGAIN OF THE NORTH SECTOR FOR WHICH, TO CONTINUE ASSETS THE FOCI OF FIRE, THE SMOKE AFECTARIA AGAIN TO THE NORTHEAST OF THE PROVINCE OF BUENOS AIRES REDUCING THE VISIBILITY. THEMSELVES it is NOT RULED OUT THAT IN THE EARLY MORNING OF FRIDAY be FORMED AGAIN SOME FOGBANKS. IN THIS ZONE WHAT PODRIA TO RESULT IN A GREATER one DISMINUCION OF THE VISIBILITY. |
Bob Holmstrom was nice enough to send this to us as well - NASA's satellite picture of the fires and the cloud they're creating...
-----------------
Update April 18th
Adam sent us a link earlier today that CNN is now talking about the fires. Pretty crazy how thick the smoke is in the city, and isn't supposed to clear up for a few days.Here's the CNN article about the fires.
And one from China's Xinhua news agency
-----------------
Update April 19th
Just a few places you can get the same news linked below. Basically the fires and the smoke will be with us for at least three more days.
Oh goody.
http://news.monstersandcritics.com/americas/features/article_1400702.php/Buenos_Aires_smoke_blows_death_and_political_winds
http://paddyinba.blogspot.com/2008/04/thick-smoke-blankets-buenos-aires.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7355723.stm
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-smoke18apr18,1,4114176.story
http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90777/90852/6395047.html
And, thanks to the BBC, you can see the smoke in pictures.
Here are a couple quick pictures we took from our apartment today. In the first one, the smoke looks darker, but it's actually just later in the day. You can judge the thickness of the smoke by the builidngs in the distance, which, by the way, are only about 10 blocks away. My plan is that once this smoke clears up in a few days, that I'll be able to add an additional picture (in the green space) with what the view normally looks like.
And I was going to post pictures of the sunset, because smoke from fires creates amazing sunsets, but the smoke is so think that we couldn't see the sun setting.
Paddy In BA posted this YouTube video, which does a good job showing how much smoke there really is here.
-----------------
Update April 20th
Today was actually mostly clear. I'm not sure if that's due to a change in the wind or because they were able to put out some of the fires. The smoke creeped back in to the city a bit this evening, but mostly all day we had clearer weather. Which is definitely a nice change from what it's been.
Just for comparison sake, here's the above picture with today's picture added (a day with nearly normal visibility for the city). I never thought I'd say that I'd be happy just to get back to a big polluted city, rather than a smoky one too, but today has been SO much better. (We can actually breathe now.)
Here's the picture comparison from our apartment. These are the original pictures. I've done nothing to change them other than resizing them:
As you can see, we've been living in a cloud for the past few days, but the smoke has lifted, drifted, or blown away for the day.
Hopefully it is gone for good.
-----------------
Comments
See also: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/18/argentina
Take a DEEEEEEEEEEP BREATH, Jon! It's the smell of progress!!! :-)
Posted by: Bob Holmstrom | April 17, 2008 11:08 PM
--------------------------------------
Ready for another of my opinions
This is common ALL OVER SOUTH AMERICA & many countries where the farmers are TOO LAZY to do the work that REALLY SHOULD BE DONE. It's a common practice for farmers to burn off the old dead crops each year (like dead corn, cotton, etc.)INSTEAD OF PULLING THEM UP like they SHOULD DO!! That requires too much effort, & time, so it's EASIER to just BURN UP THE DEAD CROPS.
The BIG PROBLEM IS--in using this method THEY ARE DESTROYING THE GOOD SOIL, & over time the soil will have NO NUTRIENTS FOR THE CROPS, so the crops won't grow well. It's A REALLY STUPID THING FOR THEM TO DO, but no matter HOW MANY GOVERNMENTS TRY TO EXPLAIN THIS TO THEM, THEY WILL NOT LISTEN. The governments need to impose HUGE FINES ON THEM AND THEN THEY WOULD STOP THIS PRACTICE!! (not to mention all the old people they kill, & children put in the hospitals from the
smoke!)
Posted by: Renee Fields | April 17, 2008 11:29 PM
--------------------------------------
Anything decided and dictated to the farmers from the top down (eg an expert, then enforcement approach) will not solve this problem. Neither will any form of punitive "motivation" (eg fines,etc) In my experience people (maybe esp. poor people) only change their behavior w/ economic motiation. If they think they will make more money, even in the short term, by burning last years field or creating "new land" by slashing and burning forest, they will do so. There has to be other economic motivation to survive and succeed besides subsitance farming.
Anyway, I kind of agree that the smoke is one of the smaller side effect problems of the overall huge problem going on in this part of the world (especially as we're thinking about Earth Day this week)
Sue Z
Posted by: Sue Zamora | April 18, 2008 07:59 AM
--------------------------------------
The aires in Buenos Aires is currently not so buenos.
Posted by: Carrie | April 18, 2008 10:35 AM
--------------------------------------
Saludos Carrie y Jonathan,
From what I understand this is a part of the farmers' strike which left us with no meat and little produce in the supermarkets: they burned fields of wheat and corn since the Presidenta temporarily stopped the boycott of the highways.
Whatever you call it, it's hell for those of us allergic to smoke.
But all best wishes that you two are NOT allergic, and that you have a fantastic time in Buenos Aires!
Posted by: Cherie | April 18, 2008 05:36 PM
--------------------------------------
Carrie - You are the best - I love it and laughed out loud - Keep having fun.
Posted by: ss - Sharon | April 18, 2008 08:06 PM
--------------------------------------
Cough!...Sneeze!..splut!..wheeze!..anybody got an oxygen kit for sale or hire? I'll pay good money!
Posted by: Quickroute | April 19, 2008 02:30 PM
--------------------------------------
Carrie and Jonathan - Please keep posting updates about the fires in Buenos Aires. We are scheduled to arive in BA on Thursday and you have the most helpful on the ground updates.
Thanks!
Posted by: J&S | April 20, 2008 11:06 AM
--------------------------------------