More than 20 killed as Chile wildfires spread

Firefighters battled dozens of raging wildfires in Chile yesterday, seeking to gain control of one of the country’s worst natural disasters in years as the death toll rose to at least 24 with nearly 1,000 more injured.
International help was set to arrive from a handful of countries that have pledged resources, including planes and expert firefighting teams, as the most intense wildfires torched forests and farmland clustered around three regions near the middle of the South American country’s long Pacific coastline.
The government of President Gabriel Boric has issued emergency declarations for the largely rural southern regions of Biobio, Nuble and Araucania.
The move allows Boric to mobilise the military to help battle the fires as the death toll continued to rise.
Boric, who suspended a holiday to rush to the city of Concepcion, 510km (320 miles) south of the capital Santiago, tweeted that he would keep working “to confront the forest fires and to help families”.
The fires have consumed some 270,000 hectares, officials said yesterday, or an area roughly the size of the US state of Rhode Island.
A searing heatwave in the Southern Hemisphere’s summer has complicated efforts to extinguish the flames, as temperatures in some of the most affected areas have exceeded 104° Fahrenheit (40° Celsius).
Pockets of intense fire could be seen leaping out from the forested hills off the coast near the town of Dichato just outside the city of Concepcion in the Biobio region on Saturday night, as light from the flames illuminated the boats berthed in the small harbour.
Thirteen of the dead – more than half of the fires’ reported victims – come from Biobio, which, like Nuble and Araucania, is home to extensive forests as well as farms that grow grapes and other fruit for export.
Some 260 fires are active across the parched region, interior ministry officials said yesterday, with 28 of them considered especially dangerous.
Nearly 1,500 people have fled to area shelters.
At least 26 of the 970 injured are listed in grave condition at local hospitals.
Chilean authorities have sought international assistance to battle the fires, with new ones sparking to life each day.
While authorities said on Saturday that assistance would soon arrive from countries including the United States, Argentina, Ecuador, Brazil and Venezuela, a specialised team of personnel from Spain was en route yesterday.
The dead included two crewmembers of a helicopter fighting fires who were killed when their aircraft went down on Friday afternoon, officials said.
One firefighter has died and at least eight have been injured while battling the blazes.
In all, some 2,300 firefighters and 75 aircraft have been deployed in the region.
The heatwave has created fears of a repeat of 2017, when widespread fires in the same region left 11 people dead and destroyed 1,500 homes.