11 Arrested in Mexico Over Yucatan Fires

Eleven people have been arrested on charges they set fires that scorched 370,000 acres of jungle in southeastern Mexico, according to the attorney general’s office.

The group started a number of fires in the state of Quintana Roo “for the purpose of exploiting lumber resources and creating areas for cultivation and uncontrolled human settlements,” the office said in a communique released Tuesday.

Residents near one of the fires told authorities they saw two of the suspects pour gasoline across a wide area of jungle, then set it ablaze, according to the communique.

Fires Moved Slowly

The fires advanced slowly through the jungle for five months until rain extinguished them in early August.

Dry wood and other forest litter from Hurricane Gilbert last September combined with the late start of the rainy season to help spread the fires, authorities said.

Mexican and foreign experts estimate that recovery of the jungle will take more than 30 years, a spokesman for the Group of 100 Artists and Intellectuals, an ecological organization in Mexico, said Tuesday.

Eight of the 11 were arrested in Mexico City, two in the state of Quintana Roo and one in the state of Veracruz.

Sought to Cultivate Land

With 30 others, they had taken over land in Campeche state, which is also located in the southeast, and set fire to it to open land for cultivation, the attorney general’s office said.

Unable to control the blaze, they fled to Quintana Roo in late March, the office added.

They were charged with property damage, carrying weapons without a license, criminal association and violation of forestry and ecological protection laws.

The communique said some of those arrested Monday have been involved in fires and illegal land dealings on Ajusco, a mountain at the southern edge of the capital of Mexico City.

Two of those arrested were also wanted for various homicides in Mexico City, the communique added.