Wildfires in southern Chile have killed 20, destroyed 1,000 homes and razed entire towns as firefighters battle blazes amid a climate-driven crisis.
LIRQUÉN: Wildfires that have killed 20 people in southern Chile and wiped out entire towns raged for a third day on Monday.
The blazes, fanned by warm temperatures and strong winds, have ripped through an area the size of Detroit since starting on Saturday.
Around 1,000 homes have been destroyed or damaged, officials said.
President Gabriel Boric said firefighters had contained some fires but others remained “very active” with new outbreaks in the Araucania region.
Both the Nuble and Biobio regions were declared disaster areas, allowing soldiers to patrol a desolate landscape of melted cars and rubble.
“It was horrible,” said Yagora Vasquez, a resident of the hard-hit port town of Lirquén.
Residents returned on Monday to dig through the ash and salvage what they could.
Vasquez had moved to Lirquén after the devastating 2010 tsunami, only for her home to be threatened by fire.
Mareli Torres similarly moved away from the coast after the tsunami, only for her home to be destroyed this weekend.
“This is much worse, much more devastating,” said Torres, 53.
More than 3,500 firefighters were battling the blazes on Monday.
Temperatures in the area hit around 25°C, slightly lower than at the weekend.
Wildfires have severely impacted south-central Chile in recent years during its warmest months.
A 2024 study found climate change had “conditioned the occurrence of extreme fire seasons in south-central Chile.”
In February 2024, fires near Viña del Mar resulted in 138 deaths.
Unprecedentedly large areas of the country burnt during the 2016-17 and 2022-23 fire seasons.
Elsewhere, wildfires have burnt more than 15,000 hectares in recent days in Argentine Patagonia.
