Peru's Machu Picchu saved from blaze

Peruvian authorities say firefighters have managed to contain a forest fire that had threatened to engulf the ancient Incan sanctuary of Machu Picchu.

Started on Tuesday local time by farmers burning grass, the fire had covered an area of about 20 hectares – larger than the Vatican city – by Wednesday, .

Cusco risk management and security office director Roberto Abarca said firefighters had not been able to get the blaze under control because of its “inaccessible” location.

By Thursday night, authorities announced the fire, which had by then destroyed 100 acres of land, had been 90 per cent contained by firefighters and police officers, and that the famous citadel had not been affected.

“Thankfully, it has been possible to contain [the fire],” the mayor of the Machupicchu district, Darwin Baca León, told the Peruvian radio station RPP.

Built in the fifteenth century at the meeting point between the Peruvian Andes mountain ranges and the Amazon Basin, World Heritage-listed Machu Picchu is deemed to be one of the new seven wonders of the world.

Located at an altitude of some 2430 metres above sea level in the Sacred Valley that was once the heart of the Inca Empire, Machu Picchu has become a tourist magnet since its rediscovery in the 1911.

The UNESCO World Heritage Convention describes the site as “among the greatest artistic, architectural and land use achievements anywhere and the most significant tangible legacy of the Inca civilisation.”