Chile declares emergency as wildfires kill at least 15

Wildfires burning out of control in southern Chile have killed at least 15 people and forced more than 50,000 to evacuate, the government said Sunday.

Security Minister Luis Cordero gave the tolls for 14 blazes burning for two days now in the Nuble and Biobio regions about 500 kilometers (300 miles) south of Santiago.

President Gabriel Boric declared a state of emergency as nearly 4,000 firefighers battled flames fueled by gusting winds and hot weather in the southern hemisphere summer.

"We face a complicated situation," Interior Minister Alvaro Elizalde said.

The president announced the state of emergency in Nuble and Biobio in a post on the social media platform X. 

"All resources are available," Boric wrote. 

Among other things, the declaration means the armed forces will now get involved.

Alicia Cebrian, the director of the National Service for Disaster Prevention and Response, said most of the evacuations were in the Biobio towns of Penco and Lirquen, which have a combined population of around 60,000 people.

Matias Cid, a 25-year-old student who lives in Penco, described fast-moving flames burning through the night and devouring homes.

"We had to leave with the shirts on our back. If we had stayed another 20 minutes we would have burned to death," Cid told AFP.

All but one of the fatalities so far were in Penco, its mayor Rodrigo Vera said.

Lirquen, a small port town, was also hit hard, with many people saving themselves by rushing to the beach, said resident Alejandro Arredondo, 57.

"There is nothing left standing," he said as he surveyed a burning landscape of metal and wood that used to be people's homes.

The weather forecast Sunday was bad for firefighters — high temperatures and strong winds, said Esteban Krause, the head of a forest preservation agency in Biobio.

Wildfires have severely impacted south-central Chile in recent years.

In February 2024, several fires broke out simultaneously near the city of Vina del Mar, northwest of Santiago, resulting in 138 deaths, according to the public prosecutor's office.

About 16,000 people were affected by those fires, authorities said.