the most devastating wildfires in seven decades raged across Mexico and other countries in Central and South America, gobbling millions of acres of forests and grasslands, and forcing closure of international airports. Blankets of smoke from these fires pushed into the us as far as Texas, Oklahoma, Wisconsin and Georgia counties.

The smoke forced government officials in Mexico and Texas to declare health emergencies, and was blamed for an aeroplane crash in the second week of May in Guatemala, in which three persons died. In Mexico at least 50 people died battling the blazes.

The fires, which are burning across the region from Nicaragua north through El Salvador, Honduras, Guate-mala and throughout Mexico, are threatening the centuries-old Mayan ruins in Guatemala and have incinerated monkeys, birds and rare plants in some of Mexico's most fragile biospheres.

The fires have been burning for months but, fed by an El Ni