As a raging wildfire swept through various regions of Chile in February, a fireproofing pilot program helped safeguard one middle class neighbourhood perched atop a hill.
Unfortunately, the same resilience did not extend to the shantytowns that sprawled below.
A neighbourhood of 80 homes, Botania emerged virtually unscathed from wildfires that roared through the city of Quilpué (population, 120,000), thanks to a fire prevention plan crafted by forestry officials andthe non-governmental organization Caritas Chile with support from the United States government, reports the Washington Post. “For months, with more than US$20,000 in funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), community leaders had bought supplies and prepared for the next big fire.”
It came in early February. Infernos raged across the Valparaíso region in central coastal Chile, leaving at least 131 dead, thousands of buildings burnt, and Chile’s National Botanic Garden on the outskirts of Viña del Mar, some 15 kilometres west of Quilpué, a “smoking husk.”
“The story of how Botania was saved when so much else was lost at once points to possible solutions and preventive measures in a country and world dealing with increasingly devastating wildfires, while also revealing the stubborn social inequalities that often exacerbate such disasters,” wrote the Post.
On the solution side of things, Botania residents became a leading example with their decision to proactively protect themselves against fire by building firebreaks and removing all potentially flammable materials—from scrub brush to trash. They also created a command centre equipped with walkie talkies and an electric generator designed to kick into high gear when the flames arrived. These efforts were the “disciplined execution” of their fire prevention plan, implemented from a pilot program launched in 14 neighbourhoods and encompassing more than 12,000 people.
But “the plan and training that would be so successful in Botania was not available in many of the communities that turned out to need it most,” the Post notes, citing official estimates that 70% of the homes destroyed in the Valparaíso region were in irregular settlements called tomas ilegales. “The conditions in many of the settlements were so combustible—improper forest management, trash-strewn streets, houses built with cheap, flammable materials—that whole communities burned in a matter of minutes.”
Many of these communities had emerged out of the “long shadow” of the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to tens of thousands of people losing their jobs, losing their homes, and ending up in the tomas ilegales.
“The proliferation ofthe settlements has coincided with a sharp escalation in forest fires,” the Post says.
While authorities believe an arsonist’s match lit the blazes in the region, they attribute the intensity of the fires and rapidity of their spread to “a volatile combination of drought, climate change, and El Niño.”
The exclusion of the irregular settlements from the fireproofing pilot was deliberate, according to the Post. “Unfortunately, the reality of the settlements is complex,” explained Quilpué Mayor Valeria Melipillán. “They are almost all in areas of risk, prone to fires, flooding, and mass removal—places where no regulated construction would be possible, making it very complex to establish adequate prevention plans there.”
But USAID hopes to change that. “Conversations are ongoing about how to incorporate additional at-risk communities in future phases,” a spokesperson said.
