The province of Corrientes continues to have a serious problem due to the fires, which do not give the firefighters a break and have already affected a total of some 500 thousand hectares in the province. In fact, this weekend the fire came dangerously close to the hotel of a well-known international chain located in the town of Villa Olivari. The place had to be evacuated completely, as well as several houses.
“The truth is that it was a quite complicated and critical situation. Around 8:30 p.m., a crew of brigade members and (staff from the) National Fire Management System (SNMF) arrived to ask us, for security reasons, to proceed to evacuate the hotel because the fire was moving quite fast,” said José Sperdutti, owner of the hotel, in an interview with TN.
It is a hotel of the Howard Johnson chain, located on the banks of the Paraná River, at the exit of National Route 12, in the Esteros del Iberá area. One of the attractions of the area is the large forest extensions, which were threatened by the flames in recent days.
“We are in a remote area, in the middle of the countryside, surrounded by a fairly large forest mass, so it can only be reached by car. So most of the guests arrived in their cars and left by their own means “, he indicated.
The local Howard Johnson Hotel had to close
There was some 35 guests in the hotel, to whom the situation was explained and they left with their vehicles. “He was evacuated due to the threat of the flames and especially due to the smoke,” explained the head of Civil Defense Operations, Orlando Bertoni. In addition, homes in the area were evacuated for the same reason.
“We suffocated one fire and others are lit,” Bertoni lamented in dialogue with Télam, adding that the fire in this area especially affected forest production, as well as fields and estuaries.
He stressed that firefighters, brigade members, hydrant planes and fire engines are fighting fires, while official sources reported that members of the Argentine Army and National Roads are also collaborating, providing machines and operators to fight fires.
“In San Miguel and Loreto, the fires were controlled and we continue to work with outbreaks in Ituzaingó and now in Riachuelo,” Bertoni explained.
For Sperdutti, for his part, the “most worrying” situation occurred on Sunday, because the fire came to be “very close” to the hotel, although he stressed that “thank God the brigade members, the firefighters and the Police of Currents managed to suffocate” the flames.
“Currently they are working and all the crews are based here at our hotel. This is the first time this has happened to us, it is not something usual. We have had a significant lack of water for quite some time, from rain. There is even a downspout of the rivers, which one sees are lower. It is a critical situation,” he added.
That is why all the hotel staff and facilities were made available to the local authorities, to “assist the firefighters and Civil Defense personnel” who are working on the site, so they had to “cancel all reservations that were planned for this week”. It is not yet clear when they will be able to reopen the doors to the public.
“At this time, the closest focus should be about 300 meters, but three hours ago we had it at 50 meters. The evacuation was on Friday and the fire kept going,” he warned.
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