FOREST FIRE AGAIN AFFECTS THE PRECORDILLERA
Last Sunday April 2, during the afternoon and night, approximately 4 hectares of the hillsides of Cerro Santa Rosa, in La Florida's precordillera, were consumed by fire. Once again it was the Brigada de Emergencias Alto Florida, together with residents and park users, who gave everything to extinguish this fire.
At around 6:00 pm on Sunday, the alarm was triggered by columns of smoke rising from the ridge of Cerro Santa Rosa — the southern boundary of Bosque Panul and the municipal boundary between La Florida and Puente Alto. While the Alto Florida Brigade and volunteers were on their way, witnesses on the scene saw three young people between 18 and 20 years old fleeing the area after failing to control a bonfire when they lit it.
Due to difficult access on steep terrain, the fire service was unable to bring vehicles to the site and barely participated in the firefighting, while CONAF brigades did not respond. As a result, it was once again the Alto Florida Brigade that led the firefighting effort, with the collaboration of volunteers, residents, and people who regularly care for the forest by cleaning it and dismantling bonfires.
The fire was a surface fire, primarily consuming grasses, Romero, and Trébol, and spread rapidly across hillsides and ravines. By around 8:30 pm it had been controlled, but half an hour later a resurgence sent the Brigade and community members back up to extinguish the reactivated fire. After an arduous battle, the fire was finally controlled at around 1:50 am on Monday.
This is the fifth major forest fire that Bosque Panul has suffered in the last 10 years, and comes on top of the last two that occurred this summer in November and January.
This forest should be protected and considered an important nature reserve, but there are still unconscious people who treat it as an abandoned place where anything can be done without consequence.
The solution is simple: NO MORE BONFIRES IN BOSQUE PANUL and to this end, the State must once and for all take responsibility for permanently protecting Santiago's last native forest by carrying out a real valuation so that it can be expropriated and returned to the community.
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