Firefighters and villagers put out a wildfire Monday that threatened people and wildlife for two weeks as it charred vast stretches of the Amazon rainforest in Peru.
"The fire that started 16 days ago has been put out," the Junin region civil defense authorities reported.
The blaze broke out in an indigenous community called Pitsiquia, in the heart of the Peruvian Amazon.
Started by indigenous Ashaninka people practicing traditional slash-and-burn farming, the blaze gutted 19,376 hectares (47,879 acres) of woodlands and another 208 hectares of crops.
The fire struck an extremely remote area known as VRAEM, an acronym for the Apurimac, Ene and Mantaro river valleys.
The area is known for its isolation, dense rainforest and tropical crops — coffee, cocoa and the country's largest tracts of coca, the raw ingredient for cocaine.
Extinguishing the blaze was a major relief for authorities who had worried the fire could wreak chaos on a major indigenous reserve, home to native communities that have limited contact with the outside world, and spread to the Otishi National Park nearby.
The reserve is home to some 5,000 people in 10 communities. Officials said a drought had left the region vulnerable.
A newly launched Peruvian satellite, PeruSAT-1, was being used to monitor the fire and assess the damage, officials said.
