At least 24 dead, 2,180 injured and nearly 300,000 hectares burned. This is the still provisional assessment of the fires that continue to ravage central-southern Chile. This area alone already represents half of the area burned in the European Union for the whole of 2022.
We expect, until Friday, February 10, nearly 37°C in central and south-central Chile. A heat wave that raises fears of fire outbreaks in new regions. The United States, Spain and even Portugal have provided assistance to this country, which is facing its deadliest fires in ten years. On Wednesday, Chile still had 300.
In Santa Juana, in the Biobío region, our correspondent Naila Derroisne see the scale of the disaster. Here, 70% of the territory is calcined. Thick red smoke fills the sky and flakes of ash fall non-stop. Some residents have lost everything.
Eight people, suspected of being at the origin of some of these fires, have been charged. For more control, the Chilean President, Gabriel Boric, announced that a curfew will soon be put in place in the main regions affected by the fires.
A forestry model to be rethought
Chile had already been hit by gigantic fires in the same regions in 2017. This year, the crushing heat of the southern summer, still in progress, and a severe drought linked to climate change, partly explain the extent of the fires. .
Only partly, because for Aníbal Pauchard, professor at the Faculty of Forest Sciences in Concepción, one of the affected regions, the extent and multiplication of these fires can also be explained by the presence of vast cultivations of pines and eucalyptus, for the wood and pulp industry.
” Some species are indeed more flammable, he said. The specificity of Chile is also the area of these crops: in some places, entire valleys are planted with 80 or 90% of these fast-growing tree species. And that’s a risk. It’s like adding fuel to these areas every time. So this needs to be framed. And this does not only concern large companies, but all the players involved. »
►Read again: Chile: violent fires continue to rage, at least 24 dead
Favored by the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet in the 1980s, the development of large tree plantations is highly criticized by some of the indigenous Mapuche people, whose ancestral territory is precisely in the regions most affected by these forest fires. .
For Aníbal Pauchard, these repeated fires must encourage us to rethink the model of local forestry, including the activity of small landowners. It calls for the creation of a plant mosaic that is more ecological and more resistant to climate change.
writing in spanish, Raphael Moran
International Writing, Justine Fontaine
We have already experienced this tragedy, it resembles that of 2017, in terms of its size and its distribution on the territory. But of course, the difference is that it was faster, and it coincided with a heat wave. The winds accelerated the process…
Luciano Pérez, President of the National Committee for the Defense of Flora and Fauna (NGO)