Corrientes, Argentina has been set ablaze by wildfires. The city has been experiencing severe droughts, low-humidities, and heatwaves, cultivating the perfect atmosphere for wildfires to thrive. Spreading since December, the wildfires continue to grow and a state of emergency was declared on Feb. 7.

Already having cleared 1.5 million acres of land, these wildfires have created an agricultural disaster disturbing an estimated 10 percent of the province, says the National Institute of Agricultural Technology. 

Corrientes is home to the biggest wetland in the country and these fires are no help to saving the remaining forests and wildlife homed in the city. Despite being a mainly rural area, firefighting units and volunteers are traveling from throughout the country as well as neighboring countries Brazil and Bolivia. 

Put in numbers, the wildfires have cost a loss of more than $337 million dollars, along with $5.82 million from the cash crop Yerba, $61.76 million lost from rice crops, and over 70,000 cattle killed. 

Environmental damages are said to be incalculable. Experts are unsure of what is to come of the wetlands existence and where the wildlife is to stand after the fires have ended. 

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation interviewed firefighters working in Corrientes who saw the end of the wildfires as weeks or even months in the future. 

Captain Marcelo Taboaba, says “The situation is grave, extremely grave. Those are the cards we were dealt in the last few years, that climate change has generated. These fires are of great magnitude that are very hard to control, not just in Argentina, but in the world.”