More than 45,000 hectares have been destroyed and there are currently 251 active fires throughout the country, of which 80 are in combat.
A helicopter fell in La Aracauranía and the bodies of five other fatalities were found in Santa Juana
The number of people deceased in the virulent fires that devastate the center and south of Chile amounted this Saturday to 22in addition to notifying at least another 16 wounded in a “critical” state, as reported by the Chilean government.
“At this moment we have a very hard, very painful balance of 22 people who have died,” explained the Chilean Minister of the Interior, Carolina Tohawho warned that “the numbers are changing every minute” and that the situation is “very complex.”
The most affected regions are Ñuble, Biobío and La Araucanía, areas of intense agricultural and forestry activity located 400, 500 and 700 kilometers south of the capital, respectively, and where the Government decreed the State of Constitutional Exception of Catastrophe.
According to the latest report from the National Disaster Prevention and Response Service (SENAPRED) of the Ministry of the Interior, more than 45,000 hectares have been destroyed and there are currently 251 active fires across the country, of which 80 are in combat.
In addition, about 1,500 people are sheltering in some thirty shelters and there are 554 injured, of which at least 16 are in a “very serious” condition, Tohá explained.
“In the last week, the equivalent of the surface burned in a full normal year has been burned,” said the minister.
unauthorized burning
The images of the fires are reminiscent of the wave of fires that hit southern Chile in 2017, the most serious to date and in which a dozen people died. The fires coincide with a long drought that has lasted for more than thirteen years and with an unprecedented heat wave in the south, with temperatures that can reach 40 degrees Celsius in southern areas in the next few hours.
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The Chilean President, gabriel boricwho suspended his vacation in Patagonia on Friday to travel to the areas affected by the fires, has said that there are “indications” that some of the fires occurred due to “unauthorized burning”. “There is no authorization to burn garbage or waste or anything,” said the president from the city of Concepción, the capital of Biobío and where he moved in the afternoon.
The president acknowledged that the situation is “complex” and asked the public to “act responsibly.” “It is much easier to prevent a fire than to fight it,” he stressed. Boric has confirmed this Saturday that he requested international aid to countries like Argentina, Mexico, Brazil and Spain to deal with the crisis and that he has spoken with his Argentine counterpart, Alberto Fernández, who assured him of sending brigade members and machinery.