The Forest fires in the Vina del Mar region chili They left more than 130 dead and around 200 missing. Around 15,000 houses were damaged.
In addition to the loss of human life, the effects also affect the ecosystem. News Agency spoke about this and the causes that led to the emergence of the fire of the observed magnitude with the Chilean biologist and director of Simbiosis Bioconsultora, Salvador Donghi.
On the one hand, Donghi explained that in Chile they tried to find “culprits” for the origin of the fire that claimed more than 40,000 victims, but that “no attention was paid to an issue of enormous relevance”: “Although the fire has an anthropogenic origin can have (which is the case in 95% of cases), the consequences and the disaster are environmental.
In this sense, he pointed out that over the last 40 years, due to climate change, there has been an average decrease of 14 to 15% in relative humidity in the country, and especially in the Valparaíso region. which affects how the fire spreads. On the day of the fire, “the ambient relative humidity was 12%,” he added.
“At such low humidity, the fire and glowing mass is projected because there is no moist atmosphere to extinguish and contain it. That is the main reason that the fire spread during all this time and on… Below it stretched over 25 kilometers. The further it progressed, the stronger it became because it had more fuel mass than it burned, and it starts a chain equation where the more the temperature increases, the lower the relative humidity and the stronger the fire becomes,” he suggested and said as an example: “Imagine a slow burning wood stove, that’s what happened at that moment.”
In this regard, Donghi explained that Chile is not prepared for the changes in atmospheric conditions brought about by climate change. “The worst thing is that we are not even starting discussions to address these events,” he said.
“All life died” with the fire, said the biologist, referring to the impact on biodiversity. “Virtually all of these ecosystems have been altered. And these ecosystems provide ecosystem services to the city. That’s why we have a more vulnerable city today,” he said. He cited pollination by bees, seed propagation by birds and the binding of CO2 as examples.