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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | April 2005 
Smoke Covers Guadalajara
 Wire services
| | Firefighter Felipe Mejia on Tuesday talks to other firefighters in the La Primavera Forest on the outskirts of Guadalajara City. (Photo: AP) |
Authorities in Guadalajara declared a smog alert Tuesday, closing schools after forest fires raging nearby blanketed much of the nation's second-largest city with a pall of thick gray smog.
Hundreds of fire fighters and volunteers were battling more than a dozen separate blazes in forests outside the city.
But the worst smoke came from two large fires, one sparked by a campfire Monday afternoon in the Bosque de la Primavera reserve. The blazes destroyed hundreds of acres of woodlands, raising the level of suspended particles in the air to unhealthy levels, authorities said.
The Jalisco Education Secretary ordered all municipal schools closed and the city's main universities also shut their doors to protect students, faculty members and staff from unhealthy air.
Officials from the state Health Secretary recommended that residents stay in doors and said they had taken extra precautions to treat asthma patients who could be especially affected.
Mexico has seen more fires so far in 2005 than in any of the preceding four years, and still must suffer through five to six more weeks of dry, hot weather before seasonal rains set in, said Environment Secretary Alberto Cárdenas.
Forest fires were also burning in Puebla and Oaxaca states and in the southern state of Chiapas, where blazes devoured hundreds of federally protected acres in the Lacandon jungle. |
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