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Vina del Mar (Chile) (AFP) – The fire in the city of Viña del Mar, on the central coast of Chile, with a tragic balance of at least two deaths and 130 houses destroyed, was not completely controlled on Friday, although it managed to be contained in three outbreaks outside urban areas.
The first light of day revealed the panorama of destruction left behind by the incident, which began on Thursday afternoon in the hills of that city located 120 km west of Santiago.
“We lost everything, documents, vehicle. What I feel the most are some dogs that stayed inside me. They are out there, dead,” Óscar González, in the Forest sector of that town, told AFP.
The Chilean government assured on Friday that with the current weather conditions and the resources it possesses, it could control the incident this day.
“In the current conditions of the fire, in the climatic conditions that are forecast and with the available resources, the forecast is (that it can be achieved) to control the fire during the course of the day,” said the Undersecretary of the Interior, Manuel Monsalve.
The authorities confirmed the death of two people, an 85-year-old woman and a 62-year-old man.
In addition, Monsalve explained that the official figures on the incident – which began in the upper area of this city and advanced through the hills – were 30 slightly injured, some 130 houses destroyed by flames and 125 hectares destroyed by fire.
“We had to go out with what we were wearing. (…) We managed to fill buckets and wet a little and that kind of stopped the flames a bit, but it was hell,” explained Evelyn Arancibia, from the Villa Montes sector, in Viña del Mar .
“The fire started up there, by (the sector of) Rodelillo. We all looked and did not realize when the fire was down here. The houses were burning one after the other, until it reached mine, and it passed to the other side. Everything is burned. Practically the entire population was burned,” said Daniel Velázquez, 66, on his side.
“Many more” houses
The mayoress of Viña del Mar, Macarena Ripamonti, said on Friday that “the consolidation of the number” of destroyed homes is underway.
“We handle a range of 200 to 500 (affected) houses. At 05:00 we had 131 ratified, but there are many more,” he said.
The authorities detailed that the fire remains active in three forest areas, and that they are working to control it with 11 ground brigades, 10 helicopters and the arrival of two tanker planes is expected.
“There are many areas that I don’t know what can enter, because the fire has not ended and we have active sources,” said the Minister of the Interior and Security, Carolina Tohá, who traveled to the Valparaíso region.
Tohá also announced the upcoming visit to the area by President Gabriel Boric.
To facilitate the work to fight the fire, help the victims and protect the homes that had to be evacuated, the government decreed a state of emergency due to catastrophe in the Valparaíso region.
“We need trucks so that they can remove all the rubble that we have here, so we can clean our houses, because the ashes can jump. We are left with nothing, everything burned,” said Javiera Lagos, a 29-year-old teacher.
The incident, which began as a forest fire, began in the hills of Viña del Mar and advanced favored by strong gusts of wind through ravines until it reached the inhabited sectors, most of them low-income, with construction homes light and narrow streets.
“We know what the point of origin is, it is in a plant sector where there was plant concentration and there were some people who are identified at those starting points,” Rolando Pardo, head of the Forest Fire Prevention department of the Forest Fire Prevention Department, told a local radio station. National Forestry Corporation (Conaf).
