A wildfire is reportedly threatening to close in on the ancient city of Machu Picchu in Peru.
Firefighters have been battling the blaze that spread after local farmers burnt grass and debris in the area on Tuesday, according to Reuters.
The mayor of the nearby city of Cusco said the fire had already torn through a space roughly the size of half the Vatican City, the news agency reported.
The fire has been difficult to fight due its remote location high in the Andean mountains, it added.
Photos given to new agencies by Peruvian officails show firefighters attempting to tackle the blaze as it tore through trees and what appeared to be shrubland. Some pictures showed them attempting to tackle the fire on very steep hills.
Machu Picchu is an ancient Inca city cut into the rock high up in the Andes. The city stands at 2,430 metres above sea-level and views from the city take in the Amazon Basin.It is a UNESCO world heritage site, and was built more than 500-years ago.
It was not clear from the Reuters report how close the wildfire was from Machu Picchu or whether the wind would continue to spread the blaze towards the ancient city.
In order to establish the degree to which this fire was influenced by climate change – if at all – climate scientists would have to do what is known as an attribution study.
However, Bob Ward, policy and communications director, at Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, said recent research suggested that climate change was increasing the length of the fire season in parts of South America.
“Recent research shows an increase across parts of South America, including the area around Machu Picchu, in the length of the season when fire weather occurs, as well as the period during which conditions are most extreme,” he said.
“This can be attributed to climate change because of reductions in precipitation as well as higher temperatures which dry out vegetation more quickly.”
