Given the complicated situation of air pollution that Bogotá has suffered in the last week, as a result of the winds loaded with particulate matter, blown from the Guaviare and Orinoquía regions, the Environment Secretariat will declare this afternoon Generalized environmental emergency for all of Bogotá.
According to the latest statements from the secretary of environment, Carolina Urrutia, “It is possible, due to the information that is reaching us from the stations and what the satellites tell us, that we will have the worst fire season in the country in the last 10 or 15 years.”
In addition to this, the official also pointed out that: “We have more sources of heat and more smoke and particulate matter are reaching us, a product of the burning of organic matter by forest fires.” But also higher volumes of black carbon, a pollutant that is not only produced by vehicles but also by burning, he added.
As EL TIEMPO had already announced, yesterday, Bogotá would be facing a new environmental emergency caused by the concentration of particulate material in the air that had arrived with the winds from the forest fires of Ornoquía and Guaviare.
At the time, Urrutia had reported that the alerts began to be activated last weekend, when the emission measurement stations in the city began to record higher levels of particulate matter.
In the same way, according to reports from the US space agency Nasa, received by the District Environment Secretariat, there are around 1,865 active hot spots in northern South America, but occasionally in the Colombian-Venezuelan plains.
These findings set off alarms in the city and even more so, when last Saturday and Sunday in the southwest of the capital, the indicators of the stations of Kennedy y Fontibón they went from yellow (moderate contamination) to orange (regular).
However, the behavior has continued to be repeated during the week and in the last 24 hours, according to the Ministry of the Environment, regular conditions were recorded in nine seasons: Mobile Fontibón and 7th, Fontibón, Kennedy, Ciudad Bolívar, Jazmín, Las Ferias, High Performance Center and Suba, which began to register an orange or regular condition alert.
The Bogota Air Quality Monitoring Network records regular conditions at 9 stations.
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— Environment Secretariat (@Ambientebogota) February 5, 2022