Chronology of a week in flames in Chile

The first flames were lit at 12:05 on Friday, February 2, in the area of ​​the Las Tablas farm, in the Lago Peñuelas nature reserve.

The records of the National Forestry Corporation (Conaf), the entity in charge of controlling forest fires in Chile, identified four simultaneous outbreaks in that sector that quickly spread throughout the dry grasslands and forests.

The heat, with a predicted maximum of 27ºC for the Valparaíso region and the strong wind that that day blew from south to north, spread the fire in record time.

At 1:30 p.m. they were already threatening Route 68, the main access road to the Greater Valparaíso area, where traffic was suspended to protect the safety of cars.

However, brigade members and firefighters were unable to contain the fire.

The flames continued to advance north following the course of the ravines that separate the different towns built in the upper sectors of Viña del Mar and in part of Quilpué.

The garbage accumulated in the gorges became fuel that fueled the fire even more.

At 6:00 p.m. on Friday, the flames were already inside the city of Viña del Mar, in part of the commune of Quilpué and in Limache.

The Emergency Alert System (SAE), administered by the National Disaster Prevention and Response Service (Senapred), a government agency, was activated on the mobile phones of the inhabitants of the affected areas.

But many say they either didn't receive it or it came too late.

Dozens of cars in which families were trying to escape were hit by fire.

Many chose to get out of the vehicles and run for their lives.

But the flames were advancing at a speed of between four and ten kilometers per hour, much faster than people could move through the narrow streets between hills.

It was the beginning of the worst hours of the nightmare.

The botanical garden of Viña del Mar, a green lung with centuries-old species, was almost completely reduced to ashes.

Of its 400 hectares, only two were left standing.

Patricia Araya, a local official who lived in the park, died along with her two grandchildren and her 92-year-old mother.

When night came, the smoke made it impossible to determine where the fire was coming from and what its route of advance was.

In the early hours of the morning, the Government of Gabriel Boric decided to decree a state of emergency for catastrophe, but only when Saturday dawned was it possible to become aware of the magnitude of the tragedy.

The first death count was 19 people, but the Government warned that the number would increase.

On Saturday afternoon, the flames did not stop and at 2:00 p.m. there was a resurgence due to the strong wind that at that time began to blow strongly again.

While Senapred warned of new evacuation places, the industrial zone of El Salto, in the southern sector of the commune of Viña del Mar, where several factories are located, began to burn.

The fire reached the facilities of about 15 companies.

The fire subsided with the hours.

The coastal trough and the low temperatures on Sunday, February 4, helped in this, but the Fire Department only declared the emergency over shortly before midnight on Tuesday.

“This is no longer just a fire, this is homicide”

During the first days it was not easy to obtain official figures for the missing and the number of deaths increased.

At first, after the tragedy, the mayor of Viña del Mar, Macarena Ripamonti, spoke of more than 300 missing people.

This Thursday, however, the Undersecretary of Justice, Jaime Gajardo, indicated that "a total of 66 complaints were reached" by people who had not been found, of which 14 still remain.

The dead, most of them picked up by Carabineros and Investigative Police personnel in the streets and burned villages, until this Thursday totaled 131 people.

Of them, the Legal Medical Service (SML) has identified 50. The state of the bodies has made this work difficult, for which the SML has had to resort to DNA tests of relatives.

At the time of going to press, 125 autopsies had been carried out and 27 bodies had already been handed over to their families.

Suspicions of intentionality in the beginning of the outbreaks hovered from the first day.

From the Government, the Minister of the Interior, Carolina Tohá, indicated since Sunday that they had “serious antecedents from reliable people” who supported the intentional origin of the fire.

And President Boric indicated on Tuesday around 2:00 p.m., in a dialogue with residents of Villa Alemana, that "this is no longer a fire, this is homicide."

But despite the intense work of the police, there have still been no arrests accused of causing the fires.

This is information confirmed this Thursday by the specialized prosecutor Osvaldo Ossandón, who is in the area of ​​the accident.

“To date there have been no arrests for fires;

There have been many identity checks that can be confused from people who have reported seeing people trying to start fires.

The law enforcement agencies have been there, but there is no evidence to determine that they were committing arson,” he said.

The investigation remains confidential in order not to interfere with the investigations.

Meanwhile, the initial records of the damage caused by the fire show some 15,000 homes affected between Viña del Mar and Quilpué.

President Gabriel Boric announced that this Friday the Government, through Bancoestado, will begin payment of the recovery bonus for affected families and activated the National Reconstruction Fund, a tool created after the 2010 earthquake, in Sebastián's first term. Pineapple.

“It has been an important mechanism to be able to channel and encourage aid and support from the private world every time emergencies of these characteristics shake our country,” he said.

Families continue to remove debris so they can rebuild their homes.

The Ministry of Public Works has calculated that they will have to remove between 35,000 and 50,000 tons of material, a task in which 164 machines of different characteristics work and that will take at least a month.

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