Itamaraty says it monitors the situation in Chile to help Brazilians who have been affected by fires

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it is monitoring the situation with forest fires in Chile, which have killed at least 46 people.

In a note released this Saturday (3), Itamaraty said that it works through the Consulate General of Brazil in Santiago “in order to provide appropriate consular assistance to nationals possibly affected by the impacts of the fires”.

The Brazilian government also said it expressed “deep regret for the significant number of deaths and injuries and for the material losses resulting from the forest fires that hit the Valparaíso region, in Chile”. “The Brazilian government expresses its solidarity with the families of the victims, as well as the Chilean people and government”, completes the statement.

The death toll means this is the deadliest wave of forest fires in Chile in the last decade, Chilean disaster agency Senapred said.

Across the country, there were 92 active fires, leaving more than 43,000 hectares affected by the incident, Interior Minister Carolina Toha said earlier in the day, when she reported 19 deaths.

Forest fires are not uncommon in Chile during the summer months, and last year, following a record heatwave, around 27 people died and more than 400,000 hectares were affected.

“The area with fires today is much smaller than last year, (but) right now the number of hectares affected is multiplying very quickly,” said Interior Minister Carolina Toha.

Between Friday (2) and Saturday (3), the hectares impacted by the fires increased from 30 thousand to 43 thousand.

Toha said authorities' biggest concern was that some of the active fires were developing very close to urban areas “with a very high potential to affect people, homes and facilities.”

*With information from Reuters