Wildfires raging across central and southern Chile on Sunday left at the very least 18 people dead, scorched hundreds of acres of forest and destroyed tons of of homes, authorities said, because the South American country swelters under a heat wave.
Chilean President Gabriel Boric declared a state of catastrophe within the country’s central Biobio region and the neighboring Ñuble region, around 500 kilometers (300 miles) south of Santiago, the capital.
The emergency designation allows the suspension of constitutional rights and greater coordination with the military to rein in over two dozen energetic wildfires which have to date blazed through 8,500 hectares (21,000 acres), in keeping with the national forestry agency.
In a press conference from the hard-hit city of Concepción within the Biobio region, Boric expressed his support and condolences to the victims and warned that the federal government’s initial reports of 18 people killed and 300 houses destroyed were expected to rise because the extent of the losses got here into focus.
He estimated the overall variety of affected homes within the Biobio region alone to be “actually greater than a thousand, just to date.”
Get day by day National news
Get the day’s top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day.
“The primary priority, as you understand, in these emergencies is all the time to fight and extinguish the fireplace. But we cannot forget, at any time, that there are human tragedies here, families who’re suffering,” he said. “These are difficult times.”
His address followed complaints from local authorities that for hours Sunday as fires ravaged the hillsides and prompted 50,000 people to evacuate, destruction was all over the place and help was nowhere.
“Dear President Boric, from the underside of my heart, I actually have been here for 4 hours, a community is burning and there isn’t a (government) presence,” Rodrigo Vera, the mayor of the small coastal town of Penco within the Biobio region, said on a neighborhood radio station earlier Sunday. “How can a minister do nothing but call me to inform me that the military goes to reach sooner or later?”
Firefighters struggled to extinguish the flames, with the warmth and powerful winds hampering their efforts. Temperatures topped 38 C (100 F) on Sunday, and the scorching weather was expected to persist through Monday.
“Weather conditions for coming hours aren’t good and indicate extreme temperatures,” said Interior Minister Álvaro Elizalde.
Residents said the fires took them by surprise after midnight, trapping them of their homes.
“Many individuals didn’t evacuate. They stayed of their houses because they thought the fireplace would stop at the sting of the forest,” said John Guzmán, 55, surveying the scene in Penco, where smoke blanketed the sky in an orange haze. “It was completely uncontrolled. Nobody expected it.”
“We fled running, with the children, at midnight,” said Juan Lagos, 52, also in Penco. The hearth engulfed a lot of the city, burning cars, a faculty and a church.
Charred bodies were found across fields, homes, along roads and in cars.
“From what we are able to see, there are individuals who died … and we knew them well,” said Víctor Burboa, 54. “Everyone here knew them.”
Wildfires afflict central and southern Chile every summer, typically reaching a peak in February as temperatures surge and the country continues to reel from a yearslong drought. In 2024, massive fires ripping across Chile’s central coastline killed at the very least 130 people, becoming the nation’s deadliest natural disaster since a devastating 2010 earthquake.
Neighboring Argentina has also struggled to contain wildfires consuming hundreds of acres of forest in recent weeks because the country’s southern Patagonia area experiences a spell of hot, dry weather.
© 2026 The Canadian Press