On Friday night, Chilean President Gabriel Boric announced that he had declared a state of emergency due to catastrophe as a measure to address the serious forest fires affecting the center and south of the country. The situation is not minor, Well, at least 46 people have lost their lives due to the conflagrations.
The priority is on the fires in the Valparaíso region due to its proximity to urban areas.
In Viña del Mar, one of the most affected cities, The fires started in the hills and spread until they reached industrial areas, where different explosions have been recorded in chemical warehouses and paint factories, which has generated a toxic black cloud. President Boric sadly commented in a speech that they hope the death toll will be higher and expressed his solidarity with the fatalities and the people who have lost their homes.
“This balance is very provisional because it is not yet possible to enter other areas also devastated by the fire,” said the Minister of the Interior, Carolina Tohá.
Until noon on Saturday 92 fires had been recorded, 40 of them were controlled, Meanwhile, brigades continue to give priority to 29 outbreaks. The fire has consumed some 43,000 hectares in the country and has spread easily due to winds, low humidity and construction in non-authorized areas.
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“The situation of forest fires, especially in the fifth region (Valparaíso), is very difficult due to the temperatures and winds,” President Boric wrote in X, emphasizing that all State entities are deployed and that sand will investigate whether there was intentionality in the fires.
“The priority is on the fires in the Valparaíso region due to its proximity to urban areas, where several fires have occurred, but two have been of greatest concern,” Tohá explained. One is the Las Tablas Complex, with 6,800 hectares, and the other Lo Moscoso, in Quilpué, with 1,150 hectares.
All these areas are between 80 and 120 kilometers northwest of Santiago, with wine, agricultural and logging companies, and due to their proximity to the Pacific beaches they have a large influx of tourists at this time of the southern summer.
As Friday afternoon fell, the flames rushed to Viña del Mar. Since then, authorities have been working to put out the flames.
Other measures
In addition to the state of emergency, the Government also imposed a curfew in Valparaíso and Viña del Mar this Saturday, in the morning and at night, to facilitate the evacuation of people who are near the points affected by the fires and arrange the routes for aid to arrive, in turn they issued several evacuation alerts.
President Boric insisted that we must take the alerts seriously, even if there are no fires in the vicinity. The authorities maintain an “exclusion perimeter” around the burned areas, to prevent transit or entry to those places. Another provision that was made was the increase in force to protect the sites and provide help.
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“We are facing an unprecedented catastrophe“A situation of this magnitude had not happened in the Valparaíso region, there are more than five simultaneous outbreaks and the most affected sector is once again Viña del Mar,” said the mayor of Viña, Macarena Ripamonti.
Viña del Mar and Valparaíso are located 120 kilometers northwest of Santiago and The routes to these Pacific beaches were closed Friday after noon due to “reduced visibility due to smoke.” VSeveral fire spots expanded very quickly, burning populated areas, where alternative routes for thousands of people trying to evacuate collapsed.
We were alerted by our cell phone and then a rain of burning ashes began to fall. This is very distressing because we evacuated the house, but we couldn't move forward, we were all trying to get out.
“I have never seen anything like it. We were alerted by our cell phone and then a rain of burning ashes began to fall. This is very distressing because we evacuated the house, but we couldn't move forward, we were all trying to get out and it was impossible to move,” Yvonne Guzmán (63 years old), who left her home in Quilpué, about 90 kilometers northwest of Santiago, told AFP.
According to a report from the National Forestry Corporation, The largest forest fire is in the Lago Peñuelas Reserve, next to the main highway to the area, which has burned more than 8,000 hectares. The second most important fire is in La Aguada, commune of La Estrella, O'Higgins Region, in the center of the country, which has destroyed 4,084 hectares. Other regions affected by the fire are Maule, Biobío, La Araucanía and Los Lagos, all in the south of the country.
Since 2017, Chile has suffered major forest fires, many of them in populated areas and in the Valparaíso region, where a prolonged drought, rising temperatures, human negligence, unplanned construction and in non-enabled sites they have created a perfect platform for these incidents. Last year, the country experienced a wave of fires that left 27 people dead and thousands of homes destroyed in regions in the center-southern of the country, such as La Araucanía, Biobío and Ñuble.
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In addition to the hectares burned, hundreds of homes and vehicles were incinerated. The alerts for high temperatures, exacerbated by the El Niño phenomenon, also extend to Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Brazil.
AFP and EFE
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