And, fires also continue to rage out west in the Vaca Reserve and coming up unto farms just outside Benque Viejo.
Today a hundred volunteers from the town went out to fight fires behind Benque. They were lead by a team of forest fire experts form the Ya'axché Conservation Trust. The Executive Director told us what it's been like:
Christina Garcia, Exec. Dir., Ya'axche Conservation Trust
"We had like over 100 people or more, so we divided each group into different sections, so today we were tackling about 3 fires that were occurring the same time. We managed to contain some fires, but it's really raging at the moment. For some of the fires it's really difficult to control because they've been burning for quite a while now, but one thing that we have been receiving is overwhelming support from the community in terms of ensuring that these fires are properly out. So far it has been really sad to see a lot of the forest cover being burnt down. Yesterday I had an experience where I went into the Vaca Reserve to out a fire, 
you could hear all the wildlife screaming yesterday. I went to the Vaca Reserve and saw and heard some of the spider monkeys and howler monkeys screaming from this raging fire. So it's really a big loss in terms of forest cover. I can't tell you the percentage at the moment, but all I can say from my observation is that it's a lot of forest that have been lost, a lot of farmers have lost their crops. Right now we are in an area where we have a lot of the fires that are really running and I think that the Benquenos are fearful that this fire might reach their town. So those are the fires we are tackling at the moment."
Today was Ya'axché's last day out west - as they have to go back to their headquarters in the south to fight fires in the areas they co-manage.
You heard Garcia speak about the punishing outcomes for wildlife in the Vaca Forest, well, today the Belize Wildlife and Referral Clinic posted this picture of a Kinkajou which was burnt in the fire. Their post says it had burnt paws, nose, ear and suffered from smoke inhalation pneumonia, quote "making his prognosis questionable, but not hopeless."
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