Chilean deputies from the center-left and right requested this Tuesday to create an investigative commission to clarify the response of the Government and the Municipality of Viña del Mar to the deadly forest fires that affected the region of Valparaíso and They left 131 people dead and thousands of homes destroyed.
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The controversy began after the Prosecutor's Office opened an investigation on Monday into a possible failure in the Emergency Plan applied in the affected areas.
“We owe Chile, the world, a clear explanation of how prepared we were and why so many people died,” center-left Radical Party deputy Tomás Lagomarsino told the press.
The parliamentarians' request will be put to a vote in March, when parliamentarians resume their legislative work after the vacation period for 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.
According to the local press, the investigation is a new aspect of the investigation that was already underway to clarify the possible responsibilities in the origin of the fires. In addition to this, the Public Ministry also wants to investigate whether the tragedy could have been prevented and whether the plan is in order.
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The Prosecutor's Office's decision came after the publication of an investigation in a media outlet that revealed that the Municipality of Viña del Mar, the epicenter of the devastating forest fires, it did not have a current Emergency Plan nor a Fire Evacuation Plan despite the request made in October 2022 by the National Disaster Prevention and Response Service (Senapred) to all municipalities in the country to develop emergency plans.
According to the report, the proposal presented by the Viñamarino local government in November 2023 was rejected for plagiarism.
![Fires in Chile](https://www.eltiempo.com/files/article_vertical_content_new/uploads/2023/02/05/63dfc0e61510c.jpeg)
Wave of forest fires in Chile
After the dissemination of the report, the mayor of Viña del Mar, Macarena Ripamonti, pointed out on Friday that the municipality has a Municipal Emergency Plan that is in force until 2025: “This includes, among other things, the processes and procedures of the organic and, obviously, the evacuation,” he added.
Ripamonti explained that the current emergency plan was adapted to the format set by Senapred and that the only thing left to “resolve” are aspects that would not be substantive, “issues of form, format or the color used.”
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The fires, which especially affected four communes in the Buenos Aires region – Viña del Mar, Linares, Villa Alemana and Quilpué – They have burned more than 10,000 hectares and they have left, according to official figures that are not yet closed, 131 confirmed deaths and some 12,000 homes affected.
The fires started on February 2 in the morning and spread quickly due to the strong gusts of wind that ran in the area that afternoon and the extreme temperatures of the last week.
![Chile Fires 2024](https://www.eltiempo.com/files/article_content_new/uploads/2024/02/03/65bebe49a642f.jpeg)
A helicopter works in the area of a forest fire in the hills of the Quilpe commune, Valparaíso region.
The high population density in difficult-to-access terrain, added to the prolonged drought in Chile, made extinction tasks difficult.
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EFE
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