Authorities warned that persistent hot and dry weather could potentially exacerbate what are already the deadliest blazes in the country’s recent history.Ĭhile’s interior minister, Carolina Tohá, said 76 new fires had broken out on February 3rd alone, adding that the record temperatures were making it very difficult to stop the blazes from spreading. Twenty-eight of the hundreds of fires have burned the amount of forest and woodland the country typically loses over the course of a year.įorecasts for higher temperatures stretching from Santiago to the southern regions have raised concerns about the current 81 active fires. The fires, which have consumed almost 741,315 acres (300,000 hectares) of land, have already made 2023 the second worst year in terms of hectares burned after the so-called “firestorm” that hit the country in 2017. The fires coincide with a long drought that has lasted for more than 13 years and with an unprecedented heat wave in the south of the country.

Since January 30, 2023, the Ñuble region has maintained a preventive early warning due to the threat of forest fires as a result of high temperatures. These wildfires are blazing within three sparsely populated central regions – Araucanía, Biobío and Ñuble – which are home to many grape, apple and berry farms as well as large tracts of forest land. The fires have killed at least 26 people, left at least 1,182 injured, destroyed 1,100 homes and prompted the declaration of a state of emergency in three regions. Record summer temperatures of more than 104 degrees Fahrenheit (40 degrees Celsius) in the Southern Hemisphere are hampering efforts to tackle a large wildfire outbreak of at least 231 individual fires across central Chile.

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