Forest fires fuelled by a fierce heat wave continued to scorch a picturesque corner of Patagonia Thursday, forcing the evacuation of hundreds of homes.

Strong winds and high temperatures fed a blaze that tore through grassland and forest near the remote village of Epuyén, reducing areas of pristine wilderness to a smouldering ruin.

“The fire grew exponentially yesterday thanks to weather conditions,” said Chubut Province Governor Ignacio Torres.

An area roughly the size of 1,600 American football fields caught fire in only five hours on Wednesday, he said.

Some 50 homes and part of a school were engulfed by the flames and 200 families have been evacuated, Torres added.

Three water-bombing aircraft, a helicopter and hundreds of firefighters and volunteers have been dispatched to the area to try and contain the blaze, which has now veered away from inhabited areas.

“The fire is still active but there was a shift to another area that is not populated,” Torres said. “There are no serious injuries, only minor injuries.”

Argentina’s national weather service has declared 17 of the country’s 23 provinces to be suffering “extreme temperatures.”

Fires are common in Patagonia’s austral summer, but a lack of rainfall and high temperatures have raised the risk this year.

“This summer is going to be very hard, very dry, with high temperatures,” said Torres.

In December, 4,200 hectares of the Nahuel Huapi National Park, a vast forest reserve near the Chilean border, were burned.

“The different simultaneous outbreaks were controlled and we hope to have an answer quickly as to why these fires were burning at the same time,” Torres said.

– TIMES/AFP/NA