BOGOTA: Chile is reeling from one of its most serious wildfire emergencies in years.
Deadly flames sweeping across central and southern parts of the South American country have turned large swaths of forest and towns to ash, killed at least 20 people, forced tens of thousands from their homes and left families sifting through charred debris.
Fire scientists say the blazes are being driven not only by extreme heat, drought and wind, but also by how human-shaped landscapes interact with changing climates — a lethal mix that makes fires harder to control.
The fires began around mid-January in the Biobio and Nuble regions, roughly 500 kilometres (300 miles) south of the capital, Santiago.
Within days, deaths were reported, more than 50,000 residents had evacuated and firefighters were battling more than a dozen active blazes.
The government declared a state of catastrophe — a rare emergency designation allowing for military coordination in firefighting efforts.
The fires have razed forests, farmland and hundreds of homes. In towns such as Penco and Lirquen, families confronted scenes of destruction — roofs collapsed, vehicles melted into twisted frames and community buildings reduced to rubble.
What distinguishes Chile’s current fire seasown isn’t an unusual surge in the number of fires, but the amount of land they are burning.
“We are living a particularly critical situation that is very far from the usual averages that are normally seen in wildfire seasons,” said Miguel Castillo, director of the Forest Fire Engineering Laboratory at the University of Chile.
Castillo said Chile is “almost tripling the amount of affected area,” even though the number of fires so far is “within normal margins, even below average.”
That means fewer ignitions are causing far greater damage — a pattern increasingly seen in extreme wildfire seasons around the world.
“This is a huge challenge for firefighters,” Virginia Iglesias, director of Earth Lab at the University of
Colorado Boulder and a fire scientist and statistician, told The Associated Press.
Iglesias said that the emergency involves fires of different sizes, often advancing toward communities at once.
Chile is emerging from more than a decade of severe drought, leaving vegetation unusually dry.