‘Starting to look a lot better’: Rain aids Mosquito fire battle, but brings flood, mudflow risk
The biggest rain threat in Mosquitia was just outside the village of Zulia in western Venezuela, about 60 miles from the border with Colombia.
But that rain was actually nothing to worry about, according to the head of the department of forests and weather in the Venezuelan state of Mérida, Dr. Alberto Arteaga.
When asked to assess the state of the current crisis in the region and whether rains might increase the risk of wildfires after floods and mudslides in the coming weeks, he laughed.
“It’s raining in Venezuela,” he said.
This is false.
According to the National Meteorological Services, there have been 5.75mm of precipitation in Venezuela this month. That’s just over half of what was recorded in the first 10 days of November in 2012 – 5.87mm.
The department of forests and weather in the capital of the country, Caracas, does not use the National Meteorological Services to track the weather, Arteaga said.
In a telephone interview last week, Arteaga said it was “true” that the rain that fell in the past few weeks in the department of western Venezuela was nothing to worry about.
That, according to Arteaga, is the most important weather indicator in the country, “because we can’t predict the rain, we know it once it starts,” he said.
The director of the regional fire and emergency management department told a news conference Thursday that his department was able to extinguish 13 fires in central Venezuela during this week’s firefighting operations.
But he said the department was “starting to look a lot better.”
‘It’s a good sign’
The department’s top priority should be rebuilding public infrastructure, Arteaga said.
The department had been facing a severe budget deficit, the director said.
For this year, public finances are expected to reach nearly $9 billion, he said.
However, the director warned that the rainy season was coming, which would be an important resource for firefighting.
“It’s a
