SANTIAGO, Chile - Chilean firefighters on Saturday tried to contain a massive wildfire that has ravaged more than 10,000 hectares of pristine Patagonia and forced authorities to close a popular national park.

High winds fanned the blaze at the Torres del Paine National Park, a 2,400-square-kilometer paradise of mountains, glaciers, natural forests and lakes in deep southern Chile, which is visited by more than 100,000 people each year.

After meeting emergency officials struggling to get a grip on the inferno, President Sebastian Pinera announced that the park will remain shut throughout January.

Some 11,000 hectares of woodland and scrub, nearly four percent of the total area of the park, have already been destroyed by the blaze, which more than quadrupled in size in less than 24 hours.

The Chilean government has deployed four planes and a helicopter to the mountainous region, where 300 firefighters, soldiers and forest rangers were engaged in a desperate effort to get the inferno under control.

Aerial photographs showed a vast cloud of smoke obscuring the beautiful backdrop of snow-clad granite peaks, wild steppes and turquoise lakes.

"We are faced with a hugely complex situation, an extreme scenario, mainly due to topography, strong winds and highly combustible vegetation," said Vicente Nunez, head of Chile's Office of National Emergency.

The US State Department earlier Friday alerted US citizens to the ongoing forest fires and urged them to avoid heading to the region.

The blaze erupted on Tuesday and advanced rapidly in dry conditions, forcing authorities to evacuate 700 people, mostly tourists, from the park, which is located some 3,000 kilometers south of Santiago.

The environmentalist group Accion Ecologica criticized what it said was slow government response to the wildfire compared with its rapid crackdown on students protesting education reforms.

"We would have liked to see a government as gifted at throwing water on the flames consuming our natural heritage as they are on citizens defending their rights," said activist Luis Mariano Rendon.

A 2005 bush fire started by a Czech backpacker destroyed 160 square kilometers of the Torres del Paine National Park, which was designated a World Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO in 1978.

Pinera said his government will seek "all necessary assistance" from other countries, having already contacted Argentina, Australia and the United States.

Agence France-Presse

(China Daily 01/01/2012 page4)