01/18/2024 – 21:50
A fire – the second in 24 hours – has hit the Cocó State Park, in Fortaleza, Ceará, since the morning of this Thursday, 18th. By the beginning of the afternoon, firefighters estimated that the fire had consumed an area equivalent to four football fields.
Despite the mobilization to fight the fire, it occurs in an area that is difficult to access – it is only possible to reach the location on foot – and the strong wind moves the fires. With an area of 1,581 hectares, this park is the largest in an urban area in the North and Northeast of Brazil and the fourth largest in Latin America. It has extensive mangroves and dunes in the surrounding area.
According to firefighters, a fire was identified and fought in an area of the park on the night of Wednesday, 17th. This fire was extinguished around 9:30 pm. But, at 8am this Thursday, another area of the park started to catch fire. Among the equipment used by firefighters is a helicopter with a Bambi Bucket – a type of bag used to capture water and throw it onto the flames.
According to the general commander of the Ceará Military Fire Department, Cláudio Barreto, the goal is to extinguish all fires. “It is very slow work, because the wind is very strong, which increasingly causes vegetation to catch fire, but we are working uninterruptedly,” he said.
The governor of Ceará, Elmano de Freitas (PT), stated via social media that he ordered a “rigorous investigation” into the causes of the fire. “I am following, with concern, the information about the fire in an area of the Cocó State Park, in Fortaleza”, wrote Freitas on the X network (formerly Twitter). “Cocó is an environmental heritage of our Ceará and must be preserved. I ordered a rigorous investigation into the causes of the fire.”
The smoke from the fire has already spread to neighboring urban areas, such as neighborhoods in Fortaleza up to 20 km away and to the municipality of Caucaia, according to residents reporting on social media.
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