The fires in Valparaíso and Viña del Mar – in addition to 180 fires in ten regions, including Biobío and Araucaria – with hundreds of victims and more than 15,000 homes destroyed, are a human drama and at the same time an announced ecocide. It does not seem credible to think that behind all these fires there has been orchestrated and organized planning. We will have to wait for the promised investigations to confirm it.
I remember that when I visited Valparaíso in November 2001 on my way back from Easter Island, I was moved to see the neighborhoods, many with self-built homes, without any planning, built with unsound materials, on hills that should never have been suitable for urbanization. The building and many flammable structures predicted a disaster that has finally occurred, fueled or not by criminal minds.
The legacy of the dictatorship is largely this urbanism of misery on which a decent and sustainable house cannot be regenerated. I find it very difficult to carry out efficient energy rehabilitation with the installation of solar panels for self-consumption in the hills of Valparaíso and on the roofs of the affected poor neighborhoods. Everything burned must be rebuilt in a different way and in safer areas.
The catastrophe that just happened is a consequence of a torrid southern summer, with temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius; strong winds and an added natural phenomenon such as El Niño. The abundant, dry vegetation and the monoculture of pines and eucalyptus – a pyrophytic species – have contributed to the magnitude of the tragedy.
In the January issue of the prestigious magazine Nature it was reported that Chile is one of the Latin American countries most prone to fires: “In the last decade, 1.7 million hectares have burned, three times more than in the previous decade.” .
Along with the human losses, we must contemplate the disaster of the destruction of the National Botanical Garden of Viña del Mar, created in 1917, where I observed in wonder unique endemic and exotic species, such as a collection of Sophora toromiro, extinct in its natural habitat on the Island of Easter; hundreds of native plants, many in a threatened state of conservation; medicinal plants; hundreds of Chilean and Central American cacti; fantastic monumental trees… In short, a unique ecosystem on the planet. Only two of the 400 hectares have been saved from the flames that have also caused the death of a garden employee, two of her grandchildren and her mother. I wonder: were there adequate prevention mechanisms to protect this cathedral from ecology?
President Gabriel Boric has to react quickly and propose a transversal emergency plan designed by ecologists, urban planners, architects, climatologists and experts to rebuild the affected neighborhoods through simple but solid and bioclimatic architecture; with energy self-sufficient homes. All forest areas at risk of fire must also be provided with a prevention and environmental education project that is supported by the most advanced technology and human teams prepared to intervene in emergency cases. Chile is destined to play a leading role in the energy transition due to the presence of strategic minerals such as lithium and copper in its territory. With one of the most advanced techno-scientific developments in Latin America, it must have both prevention and adaptation to climate change at the risk level.
The Boric Government has a pending issue on fire. The time for reconstruction will come. It will be time to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past. Chile, which has fought against earthquakes and tsunamis, is obliged to draft as soon as possible an ambitious prevention plan against the flames that includes effective evacuation plans and proposes dignified urban planning in the affected neighborhoods that is resistant to natural phenomena. A difficult but unavoidable challenge.
