Charred Chile pleads for help
What we have experienced here is literally like Dante’s Inferno. Carlos Valenzuela, mayor of Constitucion
Battling the worst wildfires in its history, Chile is pleading for international assistance after months of trying to bring the deadly blazes under control.
Drought, strong winds and high temperatures have stoked a series of fires in central Chile since November. Environmentalists blame the unusually dry weather on climate change.
Things went from bad to worse when smaller brushfires converged into a massive wildfire that destroyed the town of Santa Olga on Friday, killing 10 people and reducing over 1000 buildings to smouldering rubble.
Chilean President Michelle Bachelet has called the fires ‘‘the greatest forest disaster’’ in the country’s history.
‘‘What we have experienced here is literally like Dante’s Inferno,’’ said Carlos Valenzuela, mayor of Constitucion, a town near Santa Olga. ‘‘I believe that this surpasses any tragedy that we have had before.’’
He said the smaller communities of Putu and Cabezalillo had also been at least partially damaged.
The government has deployed more than 5000 firefighters to battle the flames, who have been aided by locals desperate to save their homes and livestock.
Government officials warn that the worst may be yet to come. Chile’s interior ministry said the country could expect hotter temperatures and stronger winds in the coming days, which would fan the flames even further.
The flames continued spreading from the mountains to the Pacific coast yesterday, on a destructive path that is now dangerously close to the city of Concepcion.
About 118 fires remain active, and 53 of those are contained.
The flames picked up near two residential condominiums in Concepcion, about 500 kilometres from the capital, Santiago. Residents of one of the condos, which is located behind a hill of pines, used garden hoses to dampen the streets while firefighters contained the flames.
Chilean forestry agency CONAF said the blazes had destroyed nearly 360,000 hectares – almost the size of Yosemite National Park in the United States – since November. Most of this was over the past two weeks.
The fires have affected an estimated 3000 people, although the number could rise, as many towns in remote forests have yet to receive aid. Thousands of people have been evacuated. Some have returned to their homes because they fear losing their houses, pastures and livestock.
The carcasses of charred horses, lambs and chickens have been buried in pits to avoid the spread of infectious diseases.
TV images show town dwellers outside their wooden homes, armed with buckets of water, hoping it will be enough to battle the flames. But those efforts are often undone as winds or smouldering ash spread the fires anew.
A Boeing 747-400 ‘‘Super Tanker’’ from the United States that can dump nearly 73,000 litres of fire retardant or water, and a similar supertanker plane from the Russian government are assisting local emergency crews. Firefighters from Colombia and Mexico and experts from France and other nations have also been arriving to Chile to fight the blazes.
Foreign Minister Heraldo Munoz said Austria, Canada, Germany, Italy, Israel, Japan and Sweden had also pledged to help.
The family behind the Wal-Mart retail empire is also chipping in. The Chilean wife of a Walton family heir hired the Boeing supertanker, which has been deployed to the El Maule region.
Residents expressed dismay and fury as they returned to charred livestock, collapsed buildings and blackened fields. Some said they felt abandoned by the authorities.
‘‘When the politicians need our votes they come here, they put their face and expect us to vote for them. Now they’re not here,’’ said Miguel Reyes, a resident of Santa Olga.
There have been successes. Penco, a town of 50,000 inhabitants, in the region of BiobIo, was saved by firebreaks that kept the advancing flames at bay. But the threat continues.
Biologists say plantations of nonindigenous forests, such as eucalyptus and pine, help to spread the fires more quickly.
‘‘About 42 per cent of the forest fires are in plantation forests, which are like matchboxes,’’ said Mary Kalin Arroyo of the University of Chile. ‘‘They spread fire to native forests.’’