1,000 Homes Burn Overnight In Chile; 7 Confirmed Dead, Record High Temps

[hatrack]

EDIT

Wildfires raging across central Chile burned the rural town of Santa Olga last night as temperatures hit record highs and authorities struggled to cope in a country accustomed to natural disasters.

The fires destroyed as many as 1,000 homes late yesterday in Santa Olga, 260 kilometers to the south of Santiago, according to Carlos Valenzuela, the mayor of the neighboring city of Constitucion. The blazes have now cost the lives of seven firefighters, police and local citizens.

“Thousands of people have lost their homes,” Valenzuela told Radio Cooperativa. “There are areas that have been completely abandoned and handed over to the fire. Unfortunately, they are being razed to the ground.”

EDIT

About 260,000 hectares have been consumed by more than 100 separate fires, many of them in the wine valley of Colchagua and the rich forestry lands further south, according to the Forestry Agency, Conaf. Bachelet has called the fires the worst forestry disaster in the country’s history. Stoking the flames has been a heatwave across central Chile, with temperatures regularly peaking above 35 degrees Celsius. Yesterday, the temperature peaked at 37.4C in Santiago, a record for the city that came just five weeks after the previous record was set, according to the country’s meteorological unit. The city has often been clouded in smoke from the forest fires.

EDIT

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-26/chile-wildfires-taking-ever-increasing-toll-of-lives-and-homes

[cilla4progress]

1. Horrible and heartbreaking

New normal I'm afraid.

And our new president obsesses over his size, while the world burns.

Looking for cartoons of him as Nero.

[pscot]

2. My SIL was complaining about 40 degrees

in Pucon yesterday. She said it seems like the whole country is on fire.

[hatrack]

3. 40? Sheesh! And the whole country is (relatively) close to the ocean . . .

You'd think the marine effect would help.

[GliderGuider]

4. I was in Santiago in 2005 for Easter. It was gorgeous.

We even saw the Andes from the center of the city, which is rare.

This is all so heartbreaking. I came from GD, which is all Trump all the time, to here, and find Chile burning.
I'm getting pretty fed up with this life. I may decide to pack it in, go back home and try a different timeline altogether.