EFE.– A firefighter He was arrested this Friday for allegedly causing the megafire that devastated several towns in the coastal region of Valparaíso last February and left 137 dead and thousands of homes destroyed.
“The field work, the gathering of evidence, the analysis and the exchange of information was what made it possible to locate, establish behavioral patterns and geographical publications of movements (of the detained firefighter),” the director of the Police of Investigations (POI), Eduardo Cerna.
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According to local media, the arrested person is 22 years old and worked as fire volunteer for more than a year at 13 Compañía de Placilla, in Valparaíso, 110 kilometers northwest of Santiago.
“There is compelling evidence of a very varied type regarding this case (…) This is not a concluded investigation, but it has taken a vital step in these hours,” said the Minister of the Interior, Carolina Tohá, at the same press conference.
Tohá assured that the investigation will make it possible to elucidate “how a person who is in that institution had behaviors of this type” and asked that the case “not cloud the function and recognition that (the Fire brigade) has in Chilean society.”
Hours later, the Investigative Police reported that a police officer was also captured. National Forestry Corporation, whose name has not been released and who would be the intellectual author of the fire, while the firefighter would have been the one who started it, according to the media Third.
Chili lived at the beginning of February fire wave deadliest in its history and which became the worst tragedy since the 2010 earthquake.
The fire started on February 2 in the morning in four simultaneous outbreaks in the Lake Peñuelas Natural Park and spread quickly due to the strong gusts of wind and extreme temperatures in the last week to the hills surrounding the city of Viña del Mar and also jumped to the towns of Quilpué and Villa Alemana, all located in the region of Valparaiso.
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The high population density in lands that are difficult to access, added to the prolonged drought in Chilimade extinction tasks difficult.
The regional governor, Rodrigo Mundacarecalled in statements to the media that the authorities suspected the intention of the fire from the beginning and stressed that “losing 137 lives is irreparable damage and deserves the maximum punishment.”
“All of us from Viñamarinos knew that this had been an intentional attack,” said the mayor of Viña del MarMacarena Ripamonti.
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