Forest fires that have killed 26 people and left thousands homeless in south-central Chile in the past week threatened new regions on Tuesday as temperatures soared.
About 5,600 firefighters, the majority of them volunteers, are battling 81 priority blazes out of 301 still burning, authorities said.
As international help in the form of personnel and equipment boosted the teams’ efforts, officials declared a red alert in the southern region of Los Rios where fires threatened the Corral and Valdivia municipalities.
Photo: Reuters
Officials said they fear fires could break out in the metropolitan region around the capital, Santiago.
After a brief reprieve over the weekend, temperatures soared again on Tuesday to create conditions that, combined with the effects of a devastating drought, are conducive to fire spread.
The temperature in many places was likely to exceed 37°C until the end of the week, forecasts showed.
“A very complex climate situation can arise,” Chilean Undersecretary of the Ministry of the Interior and Public Security Manuel Monsalve said, urging teams to be “prepared for any eventuality.”
More than 2,100 people have been injured in a week of blazes in the regions of Biobio, La Araucania and Nuble, where a state of emergency is in place.
Flames have consumed more than 280,000 hectares of land, an area larger than Luxembourg, and razed 1,150 homes, the Chilean National Disaster Prevention and Response Service said.
The smoke cloud covering much of Chile as a result has also triggered health warnings. Fifteen people have been arrested on suspicion of setting some of the fires.
About 2,200 professional firefighters from the Chilean Ministry of Agriculture’s National Forest Corp and private companies are being backed in the battle by 3,400 volunteers, and hundreds of experts sent as backup by foreign countries.
French Minister of the Interior Gerald Darmanin on Tuesday wrote on Twitter that the country would send another 80 firefighters and rescue workers to Chile within hours “to support their counterparts who have been fighting courageously for several days against very intense fires.”
“What moves us to be firefighters is ... being of service. No remuneration can ever replace the gratitude of people,” volunteer Jose Antonio Sepulveda said.
In Chile, paid, professional firefighters called “brigadistas” concentrate on forest fires, while the rest are all volunteers, including those who fight city blazes.
With permission from his employer, the 26-year-old engineer traveled on his own from Concepcion, where he lives, to hard-hit Santa Juana, more than 50km away, to help battle fires there.
Colleague Macarena Fernandez, a 31-year-old physical education teacher, also from Concepcion, described Friday’s situation in Santa Juana as “intense.”
“We did what we humanly could, what was within our means,” she said. “The most difficult is to see the situation of people left without homes, without their family, without their animals and completely destitute.”
Another volunteer firefighter, Danilo Figueroa, an electrician of 50, said he and his colleagues were working 18-hour days. Some have received calls that their own homes had burnt down while they were out trying to save others.
“Even then ... they do not stop,” he said.
A week into the emergency, the government said that some employers were demanding their staff who volunteer as firefighters return to work.
“We have learnt that in some places ... we have lost many firefighters,” for this reason, Minister of the Interior and Public Security Carolina Toha said.
“For as long as there are fires threatening lives, [the work absence required] is not too long,” she said. “The more days [of fire], the more we need the volunteers, the more tired they are and the more in need of help,” she said.
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