Forest fire in the Zapata Swamp

AndForest firedeclared a few hours ago in theZapata Swamp, in the province ofMatanzas, forced vehicle traffic to be interrupted in the area.

A Facebook post by pro-government journalist Lázaro Manuel Alonso reveals that firefighters and forest rangers are working to contain the incident.located near the road that leads to Playa Larga, in an area known as "Ciénaga de Zapata grassland".

The same source said that the fire started around noon this Monday, which"The presumed cause would be the intense drought" and that the force of the winds makes extinction actions more complex.

The Company for the Conservation of the Zapata Swamp reiterated on Facebook that traffic on the road leading to Playa Larga is interrupted.

The Zapata Swamp is a swampy ecosystem considered the largest wetland in the insular Caribbean with an approximate space of about 300 thousand hectares. Located in the Bay of Pigs, north of Playa Girón, Playa Larga is a key area in the ecotourism tours of the Zapata Peninsula.

In recent weeks, several have declaredforest fires in Cuba.

The most important of them, unleashed on February 17 in Pinares de Mayarí, in the province of Holguín, has damaged more than 6,000 hectares of forests and grasslands and only a few hours ago began to give way, according to information from Cuban authorities.

In recent days it emerged that the recovery of the thousands of hectares of forests affected in that firecould take up to 40 years.

The intense drought, the number of consecutive days with high temperatures and the lack of moisture in the soil are predominant factors in the magnitude of this fire.

Last week it was also in the newsfire of more than 40 cane fields in the Granma province, which has left the loss of about 70 tons of sugar.

Recently, otherthree forest fires of moderate magnitude in mountainous areas of Pinar del Río. In that case, the flames left about 100 hectares burned.

Otherforest fire in Las Tunas destroyed about 140 hectaresof swamp grasslands in the spillways of the Jobabo River, the border area of the Ojo de Agua-Monte Cabaniguán protected area with Granma.

The Key West weather service reported March 3 that smoke and the smell of wildfires in Cuba was noticeable in the southern Florida Keys.