Chile Wildfires Among Most Deadly In Recent Years; Part Of Disturbing Climate Trend

A large neighborhood destroyed by deadly wildfires in
Chile over the past week. 

 The death toll from wildfires in Chile had risen to at least 130 as of Tuesday afternoon as the blazes tore through some densely populated areas in the middle of the South American nation.  

The fires in Chile's Valparaiso region has also left hundreds of people missing and destroyed thousands of homes. 

The fires are likely the deadliest in Chilean history. I'm surprised this calamity hasn't been in the news more than it has. 

Reports BBC:

"President Gabriel Boric said the blaze was 'the worst catastrophe to hit the country since the earthquake of 27 February 2010,'  in which more than 500 people died."

At least 15,000 homes have been damaged or destroyed. Whole neighborhoods are gone. The fires spread so fast amid strong winds that many people had no time to flee, which is why there's such a high death toll.

And it is high, by any measure.  

Says Yale Climate Connections: 

"According to statistics from EM-DAT, the international disaster database, this makes the fires the fifth deadliest worldwide since 1900."

There's been a disturbing increase in wildfire deaths in the past decade or so. With this Chilean fire, five of the top ten deadliest wildfires since 1900 have occurred since 2018. Only two of the top 10 deadliest fires hit before 1987. 

You can't help but wonder if climate change is a part of this trend. Of course, more and more people are living in the urban/wildlands interface, where development impinges on sometimes dangerously dry forests. So that's a big part of the issue and the danger. 

Climate change is making some droughts more likely and more intense. This seems to be the case for Chile, with is suffering through what is probably an unprecedented mega-drought. 

According to Yale Climate Connections:

"The fires were stoked by near-record warm temperatures that have affected central Chile in recent weeks, with temperatures up to 42.9 Celsius (109°F). The accompanying lack of rainfall has created extreme drought and very dangerous fire conditions. 

These conditions came on top of the Central Chile megadrought that began in 2010 - the region' longest drought in at least 1,000 years. The drought has brought precipitation 25-45 percent below average, lowering reservoirs and causing tensions and social unrest over water availability."

The tensions and social unrest that the climate crisis encourages is especially disturbing to me, as you might have gathered from some of my previous posts. 

By the way, there have also been destructive fires in Columbia. And the Amazon basin is in drought. Studies indicate the Amazon drought was caused more by climate change than El Nino, which is also contributing to the problem. 

 Yes, the droughts and storms and other disasters brought on by climate change are bad enough as they directly end or ruin lives.

These increased and intensified disasters help create large scale economic turmoil, and political unrest as governments find themselves either unable or unwilling to help the populations affected by these disaster.

This spills over into other nations.  The United States border crisis is driven by poverty mixed with political chaos and violence in other nations. Climate change is likely a still small but growing part of that chaos and violence.

To say the least, the United States is not handling our border issues well at all. Politics over actual problem solving, apparently. 

We - and the rest of the world - need to get their act together. Otherwise, everything is just going to keep getting worse. Even for those of us left unscathed by the direct consequences of climate change.