The reinforcement of public and private resources deployed in the area most affected by the forest fires, between the regions of Maule and Araucanía, announced the authorities during a technical roundtable, headed by the Minister of the Interior, Carolina Tohá , and the Undersecretary of Agriculture, José Guajardo, and held this morning at the Senapred premises.
Also participating in this meeting were, among others, the executive director of the National Forestry Corporation (CONAF), Christian Little, and the president of the Chilean Wood Corporation (CORMA), Juan José Ugarte, which brings together forestry companies, who ratified that this joint and coordinated work allows doubling the resources allocated by the public sector, with a total of more than 6,000 brigade members and over 100 aircraft, to which the DC-10 Air Tanker aircraft will be added this Monday, with a capacity of 36 thousand liters.
One of the emphasis stressed by the Undersecretary of Agriculture, José Guajardo, is that this “commitment to coordination and collaboration has as its axis of work the protection of people’s lives and their property. We are integrating more aircraft, machinery and brigade members to reinforce the combat work, but we also call for prevention, because we need shared responsibility and we do not continue fighting over 200 fires at the national level”.
He also delivered condolences, from the Government and the Ministry of Agriculture, to the relatives of the victims of these incidents, including a firefighter and also a pilot and a combat helicopter mechanic hired by CONAF and hood.
For the executive director of CONAF, Christian Little, who joined this meeting after being present and working in the coordination of forest fires in the Ñuble Region, the most important thing is that “we can strengthen our work thanks to coordination with Corma, in order to better protect the lives of people and their property. Our first response as CONAF is the protection of people, critical infrastructure and our national parks”.
This was also highlighted by the president of Corma, Juan José Ugarte, who pointed out that “we are experiencing difficult days, days of mourning, and in this coordination meeting we are strengthening national capacities for combat, but also for prevention, so that follow this level of occurrence. It is very important to strengthen combat resources, but it is doubly important that they do not continue to burn. Capacities are at the limit and the first priority is to defend people’s lives, housing and belongings”.
In CONAF’s report on the situation of forest fires, at 2:00 p.m., a total of 228 active forest fires are recorded nationwide, of which 82 are in combat and 140 controlled and 6 extinguished. According to the alert system, 21 fires have been declared a Red Alert, that is, they affect or may affect housing sectors.
