The group is prepared to stay until the fires are out, or until the Mexican government feels they have them under control. D.C. This reciprocal effort has grown necessary in what appears to be a sad, and possibly historic, fire disaster in Mexico, Central America and even the United States. They re dealing with extremely dry conditions, Schmidt says. The weather is drier than a lot they ve experienced before, these are more fires than they ve experienced. They re identifying the best ways to suppress them.
Different factors demand different resources.
It depends on topography, how thick the vegetation is, how tall it is, how big the flames are, how fast it s moving, and what kind of weather is occurring at the fire, Schmidt says. In Oaxaca and Chiapas, where most of the Mexican fires are burning, scattered rains have mildly helped but more than 200 fires are still actively burning. Many of them were ignited by the farmers themselves, who normally start springtime fires to clear land for planting crops. However, this farmland surrounds towns or villages, and those are surrounded by forest areas that have had dry conditions for weeks. The biggest impact is the smoke, Schmidt says.