Forest Fire Damages Iconic Easter Island Statues

There are many recognizable, man-made natura landmarks in the world. Stonehenge immediately comes to mind. The Pyramids, of course. The Roman Colosseum.

And, certainly, the carved Moai Statues of Easter Island.

Now some of those statues have been damaged in what authorities are saying is a deliberate act.

According to numerous reports, including a story in USA Today, several of the statues were charred by a forest fire that covered 247 acres of Easter Island - a fire that authorities believe might be a case of arson.

The fire happened on Monday at Rapa Nui National Park on Eastern Island.

"The damage to some of the giant head statues is "irreparable and with consequences beyond what your eyes can see," Ariki Tepano, director of the administration and maintenance of the park, wrote on Facebook Wednesday.

Easter Island is located 2,000 miles off the coast of Chile in South America and has long been a tourist, bucket-list kind of destination for visitors. According to California-based Khan Academy, the stone statues "were probably carved to commemorate important ancestors and were made from around 1000 C.E. until the second half of the seventeenth century. Over a few hundred years the inhabitants of this remote island quarried, carved and erected around 887 moai. The size and complexity of the moai increased over time, and it is believed that Hoa Hakananai'a dates to around 1200 C.E."

In an interview with Radio PAUTA, the mayor of Rapa Nui, Pedro Edmunds Paoa, said the fire was "not an accident" and that "all the fires on Rapa Nui are caused by human beings. There is no money to prevent fires on Easter Island in the more than 32,000 archaeological sites. To prevent fire, we need to have guards permanently at the sites," he said, according to USA Today.