With wind that high and humidity that low, the fire risk must be very
high. Crops must take an awful lot of irrigating too (or is it a
desert?).

It's semi-desert, and cold too (annual mean 7°C). The current
temp and dewpoint are very typical, if not perhaps the wind! The mean
annual rainfall at Río Gallegos is 220 mm, and gets even less as you
move north. I don't think there's any arable farming, just millions of
miserably frigid sheep. It's said you don't need to move around to see
Patagonia - stay in one place and it'll eventually all blow past you
(as dust). Unique, I'd say, in being a cool west-wind desert.
Tudor Hughes