On the third day of the deadly fires sweeping southern Chile, the situation remained critical yesterday, Monday, with the emergence of new outbreaks (now reaching 34) making the work of firefighters more difficult, amid the hot summer in the Southern Hemisphere.
The fires broke out on Saturday and were fueled by high temperatures (37+°C) and strong winds of 70 km/h and more in the regions of Ñuble and Biobío, some 500 kilometers south of the capital Santiago.
The latest death toll announced last night by Interior Minister Álvaro Elizalde spoke of 19 dead.
Chile and Argentina are facing intense heat waves, while in mid-January more than 150,000 stremmas burned in Patagonia.
Those affected are around 1,500, as more than 1,000 homes were damaged or completely destroyed. Nearly 350,000 stremmas of land burned, neighborhoods and even settlements were turned to ash. More than 50,000 people were forced to flee their homes urgently.
“We managed to control or contain part of the fires. However, some remain very active and we are fighting an intense battle,” summarized the country’s president, who declared a nighttime curfew in the communities that suffered the heaviest blows.
In recent years, wildfires have hit Chile very hard, mainly the central and southern parts of the country.
According to Chile’s Center for Climate Science and Resilience, rising temperatures and the drought of the last ten years and more are facilitating the spread of fires, while the southern part of the country has recorded in recent years “unprecedented” temperatures, reaching up to 41° Celsius.
Source: Reuters
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