A year after the worst wildfires in history, Chile is still struggling to recover

A year after 137 people were killed in Chile’s worst wildfires that ravaged his neighborhood and the coastal communities of Vina del Mar and Valparaiso, Carlos Vidal is still clearing the debris that once stood where his home once stood.

According to Vidal, 63, he applied for government housing but never heard back, so he has been gradually rebuilding his house on the ashes of his former one with the help of a government bonus.

Vidal’s house is still surrounded by burned-out buildings, and many locals, including the mayor, have expressed dissatisfaction at the government’s lack of assistance in the reconstruction.

In Quilpue, a commune in the Valparaiso area, the mayor, Carolina Corti, stated, “The fire victims say they have no clarity on what their housing situation is going to be, they don’t know the time frame or how it’s going to be done.”

A road dividing the two cities was stopped by hundreds of locals on Sunday, the anniversary of the fires that started on February 2, in an effort to get the government to take more action.

One of the demonstrators on Sunday, Renato Tapia, stated, “It’s been a year, and we have no solution,” adding that he has received all the paperwork required to start restoration since March.

“This is an older population, a lot of retirees,” Tapia explained. “Our situation is critical.”

Chile’s Ministry of Housing and Urbanism said in a statement Friday that it aims to expedite the repair process, acknowledging that it has been slow.

“A home takes more than a year to finish. A year and a half or two years is the time range we always establish. According to Minister Carlos Montes, “life shows us it takes up to three years,” but that now that they had established a strong basis, the process will go more quickly.

41% of the 3,043 impacted families were in “some stage of reconstruction,” according to the ministry, with 626 having a subsidy and 636 in the process of acquiring one.

In addition, it stated that 78 families had found permanent homes while 320 houses were under construction, 228 were set to start, and plans were being created to house 685 families.