MEXICO FIRES BLAMED ON DRUG-FARMING

MEXICO CITY (AP) -- Drug traffickers burning fields to plant marijuana are
partly responsible for a series of fires that have scorched hundreds of
thousands of acres of land in western Mexico, the military said Wednesday.

Meanwhile, El Nino-triggered drought is being blamed for fires that have
killed at least 23 people in southeastern Mexico this week. El Nino is a
periodic warming of the eastern Pacific Ocean that can sharply alter typical
weather patterns.

Up to 30 percent of the fires in the western states of Michoacan and
Guerrero are the fault of drug traffickers, the daily Reforma quoted
military commanders in those states as saying.

``The narco-traffickers clear and then burn (the fields) to plant drugs. ...
They do not make safety lines or take precautionary measures,'' Juan Oropeza
Garnica, regional commander in the Guerrero resort city of Acapulco, told
Reforma.

The dead included 19 local residents fighting a fire in Puebla state. The
others died in Tlaxcala and Veracruz states, also south and east of Mexico
City.

Many of the fires have been started by farmers burning off brush from their
fields. So far this year, 8,957 fires have burned a total of 540,270 acres,
Environmental Minister Julia Carabias said.

President Ernesto Zedillo, visiting Puebla on Tuesday, said the government
is making every effort to control the fires. Carabias said nearly 90,000
soldiers have been put to work as firefighters nationwide.

Zedillo called on farmers to stop burning forests to clear land for
agriculture.

Checked-by: "R. Lake"