Article: Rare tortoises saved from Galapagos fire

QUITO, Ecuador (AP) - Calmer winds, damp vegetation and trenches dug by firefighters helped to control a fire just short of a nesting area of the rare giant tortoise in the Galapagos group of islands.

The fire, which has been burning for two weeks on Isabela, the largest island in the chain, was stopped less than two miles south of the Sierra Negra volcano, home to some 6,000 tortoises.

A spokesman for the Charles Darwin Institute on nearby Santa Cruz island said on Sunday that firefighters managed to hold back the fire by digging trenches on two fronts.

Two-thirds of the length of the ...

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