I have family in The Ñuble Region, they are all doing ok. I hope that, if you live close, you are doing well, too.
Good news, a tanker is on its way to Chile to help fight the fires!
https://twitter.com/flightradar24/status/1622407893135003648
And Burric actually accepted the offer of former emergency handling vetted minsters from the Pirahna government to help with the fires which is absolutely astonishing given the crazed ideology-only approved stance of this millennial run gov in training at corporate officer or above salaries.
1 Like
Oops double post. I was very surprised that Boric would admit he needs help.
Chalksquire - I hope your family continues to be all right.
1 Like
Our best wishes to those in danger in that region.
Such events remind us of a couple of things that help to round out an understanding of the poor performance of governments here.
One was the Ballenet government refusing to use the armed forces to contain the looting after a major earthquake (the so-called Caso Tsunami in 2010) . Actually there were many Ballenet government failures in the Caso Tsunami events, with fatal outcomes. A topic for another time.
Another, likely less known situation took place during the abysmal initial CONAF response to the Torres del Paine forest fire of 2011-2012. The Piñera government did welcome immediate assistance from Argentine brigadistas and the armed forces. However, there was no helicopter in the park for CONAF use when the fire started and using horseback to get to the zone was an absurdity given the rapid evolution of the fire. Eventually military helicopters were brought to the scene for transport and assessment of conditions, but for some time no CONAF water-bucket capacity was seen. Finally, on 31 December a strange yellow apparition was seen near Valle El Frances: a Russian Kamov helicopter, leased by ONEMI. The story was told, and it may be true, that neither CONAF nor any other agency had anyone qualified to operate the helicopter with the water bucket. And according to local lore, Spanish pilots had to be flown in and paid substantial salaries to do the work for CONAF. That Kamov was the only helicopter that could continue in the operations area after 2 pm on 01 January due to weather conditions.
It’s unclear who pressured who to make this Kamov helicopter support happen but the Piñera government at some point did seem to pull out the stops and invited a wide range of international assistance resources. Nevertheless, as is seen in the current shortfall, Chile is sadly lacking in its capacity to address these wildfire emergencies.
And now for something completely different:
As of 13 February, the government is reporting 300 active wildfires, of which 82 are considered out of control.