Stars

Shop with eco-friendly cleaning solutions!

Shop here

forward-icon-2

Colombia turns drug-fumigation planes into fire fighters

By Reuters

February 15, 2024 at 1:00:02 PM

BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombia on Wednesday added eight aircraft, some previously used to fumigate drug crops, to its fire-fighting fleet as it braces for more dry El Nino weather that has stoked major wildfires.

President Gustavo Petro declared a natural disaster in January as fires ravaged areas of the world's second-most bio-diverse country.

Petro attended an event in Tolima province displaying the four AT-802 Air Tractor planes and four Black Hawk UH-60 helicopters, originally donated by top ally the United States, that were refitted to drop water and chemicals to quell flames.

The planes were used to spray the herbicide glyphosate on illegal plantations of coca, the chief ingredient in cocaine, until 2015 when the flights were stopped due to health concerns related to the chemical.

(Reporting by Luis Jaime Acosta; Writing by Julia Symmes Cobb; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

Share News
Reuters
Reuters

News Agency

Reuters is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world.

Related Products

Categories

Popular Articles

A father and son standing on a desolate, rocky landscape with a distant, hazy horizon.
Climate Fiction: The Genre For Our Time

Arts & Literature

Aug 17, 2024

Latest Infobites
5th
4th
3rd
2nd

Share your ideas

with others