A week of events in the flames of fire in Chile

The first flames were lit on Friday, February 2 at 12:05 in the area of ​​Las Tablas Farms in the Lago Peñuelas Nature Reserve. Records from the National Forestry Corporation (Conaf), the entity in charge of controlling wildfires in Chile, identified four simultaneous outbreaks in the region that rapidly spread across dry grasslands and forests.

The heat of 27ºC, the maximum predicted for the Valparaíso region, and the strong south-to-north wind that day caused the fire to spread in record time. At 1:30 pm they were already threatening Route 68, the main access road to the Greater Valparaiso area, where traffic was suspended to protect the safety of cars. However, brigade members and firefighters were unable to control the fire. The flames continued north through ravines that separate the various towns built in the upper reaches of Viña del Mar and part of Quilpúy. The garbage accumulated in the ravines became fuel which further fueled the fire. At 6:00 pm on Friday, flames were already inside the city of Viña del Mar, in part of the commune of Quilpué and in Limache.

The Emergency Alert System (SAE), administered by the National Disaster Prevention and Response Service (CENAPRED), a government agency, was activated on the mobile phones of residents of the affected areas. But many people say that either they did not receive it or it came too late. Dozens of cars in which families were trying to escape were engulfed in flames. Many people chose to run away to save their lives by getting out of the vehicles. But the flames were moving at a speed of four to ten kilometers per hour, much faster than the speed of movement of people through the narrow lanes between the hills. This was the beginning of the worst hours of the nightmare.

The Botanical Garden of Viña del Mar, a green lung containing centuries-old species, was almost completely reduced to ashes. Only two of its 400 hectares were left. Patricia Araya, a local official who lived in the park, died along with her two grandchildren and her 92-year-old mother.

When night fell, the smoke made it impossible to discern where the fire was coming from and what its path was. In the morning, Gabriel Boric’s government decided to declare a state of emergency for the disaster, but it was not until Saturday morning that the magnitude of the tragedy became known. The first death toll was 19 people, but the government warned that the number would rise.

The flames did not stop even on Saturday afternoon and at 2 o’clock in the afternoon the flames flared up again due to the strong wind, which started moving faster again at that time. While Senapred warned of new evacuation locations, the industrial area of ​​El Salto in the southern area of ​​the commune of Viña del Mar, where many factories are located, began to burn. The fire reached the facilities of about 15 companies.

The fire subsided with the hours. A coastal trough and low temperatures on Sunday, February 4 helped, but the fire department declared a state of emergency shortly before midnight Tuesday.

“It’s not just fire anymore, it’s murder”

During the first days it was not easy to obtain official figures of missing people and the number of deaths increased. At first, after the tragedy, Viña del Mar mayor Macarena Ripamonti said more than 300 people were missing. However, this Thursday, the Undersecretary of Justice, Jaime Gajardo, indicated that “a total of 66 complaints were received” against people whose whereabouts were unknown, 14 of whom still remained.

Most of the dead were picked up from the streets and burned villages by Carabineros and investigative police personnel, a total of 131 people as of Thursday. Of them, the Legal Medical Service (SML) has identified 50. The condition of the bodies has made this task difficult, forcing the SML to resort to DNA testing of relatives. Till the time of writing, 125 autopsies had been conducted and 27 bodies had already been handed over to their families.

Suspicions of deliberate involvement loomed large since the beginning of the outbreak. On the government side, the interior minister, Carolina Toha, indicated on Sunday that she had “serious antecedents of credible people” who supported the deliberate origin of the fire. And President Boric, in a conversation with residents of Villa Alemana around 2:00 pm on Tuesday, indicated that “this is no longer a fire, this is murder.”

But despite the hard work of the police, the accused of setting the fire have not been arrested yet. This information has been confirmed by the Special Prosecutor Osvaldo Osandón, who was present in the area of ​​the accident this Thursday. “No arrests have been made for the fire till date; There have been several identification checks that may have confused people who reported seeing people trying to set the fire. Law enforcement agencies are present there, but there is no evidence to determine that they were committing any arson,” he said. To avoid interference in the investigation, the investigation remains confidential.

Meanwhile, initial records of damage caused by the fire show that about 15,000 homes have been affected between Viña del Mar and Quilpúy. President Gabriel Boric announced that this Friday the government, through the BancoEstado, will begin paying recovery bonuses to affected families and will activate the National Reconstruction Fund, an instrument created after the 2010 earthquake in Sebastián’s first term. Will be done. Pineapple. “Whenever an emergency with these characteristics hits our country, it has been a vital mechanism to be able to channel and encourage assistance and support from the private world,” he said.

Families continue to clear debris so they can rebuild their homes. The Ministry of Public Works has calculated that they will have to remove 35,000 to 50,000 tonnes of material, a task that employs 164 machines of various specifications and will take at least a month.

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