Starting last Wednesday, I had an unusual view from my home—not just my daily vista of Huascaran, but also of huge clouds of smoke, as wildfires swept the forest below Huascaran. Having read accounts of out of control blazes in the States, I was fascinated and terrified by the sight. My host parents assured me that comuneros, people who held community land in the forest, would fight the fire—with dirt, water or ditches. For three days we worried, watching the black swath grow across the base of Huascaran. Finally, it rained, and I ventured up to see the results. This is the strange landscape that I found.
Starting last Wednesday, I had an unusual view from my home—not just my daily vista of Huascaran, but also of huge clouds of smoke, as wildfires swept the forest below Huascaran. Having read accounts of out of control blazes in the States, I was fascinated and terrified by the sight. My host parents assured me that comuneros, people who held community land in the forest, would fight the fire—with dirt, water or ditches. For three days we worried, watching the black swath grow across the base of Huascaran. Finally, it rained, and I ventured up to see the results. This is the strange landscape that I found.
