A state of emergency has been declared by the President of Peru, Dina Bolivarte, in three regions of the country affected by forest fires in recent months, which have claimed the lives of 16 people and destroyed crops.

These are the regions of Amazonas, San Martin and Ucayali, where the authorities had asked President Bolluarte to allocate more resources to deal with the fires.

Forest fires are common in Peru between August and November and are attributed in most cases to the burning of dry grasses or to land encroachers.

On Monday, Peru’s prime minister appealed to farmers to stop burning grasslands as thousands of hectares were reduced to ashes by wildfires.

For his part, the governor of Ukayali requested the assistance of military aircraft in operations to extinguish fires raging in rugged, inaccessible areas and destroying crops.

Satellite images analyzed by Brazil’s space agency showed 346,122 fires have broken out in Latin America so far this year, surpassing the 2007 record of 345,322.