Argentina fires ravage pristine Patagonia forests, fueling criticism of Milei's austerity

LOS ALERCES NATIONAL PARK, Argentina (AP) — These days, the majestic, forested slopes of Argentina’s Patagonia look like a war zone.

Mushroom clouds of smoke rise as if from missile strikes. Large flames illuminate the night sky, tainting the moon mango-orange and turning the glorious views that generations of writers and adventurers imprinted on the global psyche into something haunted.

Vast swaths of the Los Alerces National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site home to 2,600-year-old trees, are now ablaze.

The wildfires, among the worst to hit the drought-stricken Patagonia region in decades, have devastated more than 45,000 hectares (over 110,000 acres) of Argentina’s native forests in the last month and a half, forcing the evacuation of thousands of residents and tourists. As of Monday, the inferno was still spreading.

The crisis, with most of Argentina's fire season still ahead, has reignited anger toward the country’s radical libertarian president, Javier Milei, whose harsh austerity drive in the last two years has slashed spending on programs and agencies that not only work to combat fires but also protect parks and prevent blazes from igniting and spreading in the first place.

“There has been a political decision to dismantle firefighting institutions,” said Luis Schinelli, one of 16 park rangers covering the 259,000 hectares (642,000 acres) of Los Alerces National Park. “Teams are stretched beyond their limits.”

After coming to office on a campaign to rescue Argentina’s economy from decades of staggering debt, Milei slashed spending on the National Fire Management Service by 80% in 2024 compared to the previous year, gutting the agency responsible for deploying brigades, maintaining air tankers, purchasing extra gear and tracking hazards.

The service faces another 71% reduction in funds this year, according to an analysis of the 2026 budget by the Environment and Natural Resources Foundation, or FARN, an Argentine environmental research and advocacy group.

The retrenchment arrives at a time when climate change is making extreme weather more frequent and severe, increasing the risk of wildfires.

“Climate change is undeniable. This is us living it,” said firefighter Hernán Mondino, his face smeared with sweat and soot after a backbreaking day battling blazes in Los Alerces National Park. “But we see no sign that the government is concerned about our situation.”

The Ministry of Security, which assumed oversight of firefighting efforts after Milei downgraded the Ministry of Environment, did not respond to a request for comment.

Milei and Trump take chainsaws to the state

Milei’s deep spending cuts have stabilized Argentina's crisis-stricken economy and driven annual inflation down from 117% in 2024 to 31% last year — the lowest rate in eight years.

His battles against government bloat and “woke” culture have helped him cozy up to U.S. President Donald Trump, whose own war on federal bureaucracy has similarly rippled through scientific research and disaster response programs.

After Trump announced last year that the U.S. would leave the Paris climate agreement, Milei threatened to do the same. He boycotted the U.N. climate summit and referred to human-caused climate change as a “socialist lie,” infuriating Argentines who understand that record-breaking heat and dryness, symptomatic of a warming planet, are fueling the fires in Patagonia.

“There's a lot of anger building up. People here are very uncomfortable with our country's politics,” said Lucas Panak, 41, who piled into a pickup truck with his friends last Thursday to fight the blazes enveloping the small town of Cholila after municipal firefighting brigades were sent elsewhere.

Disaster management amid austerity

When lightning started a small fire along a lake in the northern fringes of Los Alerces in early December, firefighters struggled to respond, limited by the remote location and lack of aircraft to transport crews and douse the hills.

The initial delay forced the resignation of the park's management and led residents to accuse them of negligence in a criminal complaint as flames leapt across the ancient mountains.

But some experts argue the problem wasn't inaction after the fire erupted, but long before.

“Fires are not something you only fight once they exist. They must be addressed beforehand through planning, infrastructure and forecasting,” said Andrés Nápoli, director of FARN. “Prevention has essentially been abandoned.”

On top of its cuts to the National Fire Management Service, Milei's government ripped tens of millions of dollars from the National Park Administration last year, leading to the dismissal or resignation of hundreds of rangers, firefighters and administrative workers.

As more tourists descend each year on Argentina's parks, forest rangers say that cutbacks and deregulation measures also make it harder to monitor fire dangers, clear trails and educate visitors on caring for the park. Last March the government scrapped a requirement for risky tourist activities such as glacier treks and rock climbs to be overseen by licensed guides.

“When staffing is reduced, control is lost. Visitor safety is compromised,” said Alejo Fardjoume, a union representative for national park workers. “The impact of these decisions is not always immediate, but it is cumulative.”

Firefighters strain to keep up

A 2023 National Park Administration report recommends a minimum deployment of 700 firefighters to cover the land under its purview. The agency employs 391 now, having lost 10% of staff as a result of layoffs and resignations in the last two years under Milei.

Budget cuts to the National Fire Management Service have scaled back training capacity and reduced available equipment, firefighters say, leaving many to rely on secondhand clothes and donations.

Authorities at Los Alerces this weekend insisted that the fiscal shock program had no bearing on firefighters' efforts to combat the ongoing blaze.

“You cannot overcrowd dangerous terrain with people using cutting tools,” said Ariel Rodríguez, the interim park superintendent.

But national firefighters pushed beyond the brink of exhaustion said their ranks are constantly thinning, if not due to layoffs then to resignations over poverty-level wages that have failed to keep pace with inflation.

The average firefighter in Patagonia's parks earns $600 a month. In provinces with cheaper living costs, the monthly wage drops to just over $400. A growing number of firefighters say they've been forced to pick up extra work as gardeners and farmhands.

“From the outside it looks like everything still functions, but our bodies bear the cost,” said Mondino. “When someone leaves, the rest of us carry more weight, sleep less and work longer hours.”

An untimely dance

For a month as the forests burned, Milei said almost nothing about the fires and carried on as usual. Last week, as provincial governors pleaded with him to declare a state of emergency in order to release federal funds, he danced onstage with his ex-girlfriend to Argentine rock ballads.

The split-screen image supplied his critics with powerful political ammunition. “While Patagonia burns, the president is having fun singing,” said centrist lawmaker Maximiliano Ferraro. Left-leaning opposition parties staged protests across provinces.

On Thursday Milei relented, decreeing a state of emergency that unlocked $70 million for volunteer firefighters and announcing “a historic fight against fire” on social media.

At the base camp where bleary-eyed firefighters recuperate, some expressed hope this weekend that more relief was on the way. Still, they couldn't help but dwell on what had already been lost.

“It hurts because it's not just a beautiful landscape, it's our home,” said Mariana Rivas, a volunteer organizing impromptu massages and medical checkups for exhausted firefighters. “There's anger about what could have been avoided, and anger because every year it gets worse.”

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