Tierra Verde's new fire-watch system aims to prevent another catastrophe

In the town of Puerto Iguazú, a small settlement in the forested hills northeast of San Vicente, Lucía Ferreyra climbs a wooden tower at dawn each morning to scan the ridgeline for smoke. She is one of forty-three community fire monitors the regional government has stationed across Tierra Verde's protected forest zones since March. Her role is to watch, to radio any sign of smoke to a central dispatch, and to know the terrain well enough to guide evacuations if flames appear.

The monitor network is the centrepiece of a new early-warning system that Tierra Verde assembled after last summer's wildfire season, when fires burned through 8,200 hectares of protected forest and forced the evacuation of nearly 4,000 residents. The evacuation exposed gaps in communication between regional authorities and local communities—some residents learned of the danger from neighbours rather than from official alerts. This year, the region has invested in training, positioning, and accountability.

The system rests on a simple principle: the closer a watcher stands to the fire's likely origin, the sooner the alarm sounds. Ferreyra's tower sits on a ridge where afternoon winds funnel up from the valley, and where any fire starting in the forest below would produce visible smoke within minutes. She carries a two-way radio, a logbook, and binoculars. Every hour, she notes wind direction, cloud cover, and any unusual activity. If she sees smoke, she reports immediately to the regional dispatch centre in San Vicente.