2021 wildfire season: Chile, Valpariso region

Thanks in part to Mike Archers, Wildfire News of the Day Email Newsletter (subscribe here), I can read about wildfires occurring outside of the United States. I have recently been thinking of South America because I know that it is summer in that part of the world. As I have read summaries of wildfires in South America over the last few days, I knew that I wanted to do at least one blog post about a wildfire in South America. Ideally I wanted a video to share as well because I do believe that a video can be worth a thousand words, thanks to my friends at the NJ Forest Fire Service Section B10 who maintain a video of the week page, I found a nice short video dated on or about January 15th about a wildfire in the Valpraiso region of Chile, near Quilpue City. Thanks to Google Earth, and the information from the about page of the video that I will embed below I was able to save an image so you can get an idea of where the Valpraiso region is, on the west coast of Chile along with image showing most of Chile (Quilpue is the red marker).

Direct link to January 15th 2021 video from Global News News (with English subtitles)

Mike Archer included a summary with link to an article from dw dot com (in Chile??), the article is in Spanish. Unfortunately, I do not know Spanish but with the help of Google translate, I was able to get what I think are some pertinent facts about this wildfire in the Valparios region of Chile. The article in Spanish is dated January 16th and may be found here. I take responsibility for any errors in facts.

This summer Chile is experiencing the worst drought in six decades, so conditions are ripe for wildfires. The fire began as one of four starts on Thursday, January 14th occurring at about the same time. I believe that two of these fires were controlled by January 16th with the remaining two merging into one fire. As of January 16th, 4,200 hectares (approximately 10,378 acres) had burned. Evacuations orders affecting 25,000 residents were in place. At least six homes were destroyed. Last weekend 22 helicopters and 8 tankers were working the fire in support of wildland fire crews on the ground. 

I did an internet search prior to writing this article and so far, I do not have any current news of this fire so I can not provide an update. I am sorry. If I find any later news, I will provide an update here. I had originally embedded another longer video, that video is no longer available but I did find the shorter video that I embedded here.