It is a case that has generated surprise and indignation in Chile.
A Chilean court on Saturday ordered preventive detention for a firefighter and a former brigade member accused of having planned and caused the forest fires that hit the communes of Viña del Mar, Quilpué and Villa Alemana at the beginning of February.
The voracious fires left a balance of 137 dead and nearly 16,000 affected.
The prosecutor specialized in fires, Osvaldo Ossandón, detailed to the media that the authorities found flares and pyrotechnic fires in the vehicle of the main detainee, Francisco Mondacaa 22-year-old volunteer firefighter.
For his part, the commander of the Valparaíso fire department, Vicente Maggiolo, assured that he and his team are “completely devastated” by what happened.
“It is a completely isolated incident and we want to clarify it as soon as possible,” he added.
A former brigade member of the National Forestry Corporation (Conaf), who has been identified as Franco Molina (31), was also arrested for being the alleged intellectual person responsible for the fire.
The director of Conaf, Christian Little, said he was surprised by the alleged involvement of one of his employees and described it as “a pain for the institution.”
After the arrest of the accused, the Minister of the General Secretariat of Government, Camila Vallejo, stated that the government of President Gabriel Boric appreciates that the investigation is advancing.
He added on the social network
“Although it is very shocking, it is good news“said the Minister of the Interior, Carolina Toha.
“The fact that they are found and face justice is an act of reparation“, for the victims, he added to the press last Saturday.
“He told me that February 2 was ‘good’”
According to the Research Center for Integrated Disaster Risk Management of Chile, the fire in the Valparaíso region has been one of the largest disasters recorded in the country in the last 30 years.
According to prosecutor Osvaldo Ossandón, on February 2 there were “approximately four outbreaks, equidistant from each other” in the area where the fire originated.
During the formalization hearing last Friday, Francisco Mondaca spoke about his relationship with the other defendant, whom he described as a “friend.”
“I maintain contact with Franco via voice telephone and sporadic messaging,” he declared.
Likewise, he said that both of them coincided in a fire incident and that Molina then suggested that, as officials, it was convenient for them economically work overtime fighting fires.
“One, two or three days before February 2 of this year, I met Franco Pinto on the public road, in the town of Placilla, where he told me that February 2 was ‘good’, due to the conditions climatic conditions that would exist that day, such as heat and wind,” said Francisco Mondaca.
“He told me that it would be good in the sector of the Lago Peñuelas Forest Reserve and along the route known as the Camino Viejo to Santiago, since There was plenty of dry grass in that place“continued the 22-year-old firefighter.
“We agreed that I would go in the morning hours of that day to the Las Tablas and Camino Viejo sector to Santiago to start fires, by launching incendiary devices that he himself had taught me to make.”
Mondaca claims that Molina told him that he should “roll matches around a cigarette and tie it with a thread.”
According to the Chilean media, Mondaca’s arrest generated surprise among his colleagues in the fire department.
The young man He had joined the institution as a volunteer a year and a half ago. and his colleagues described him as a “calm” person.
Local authorities reported that the accused had passed all his psychological tests to enter the fire department.
“I did not use all the incendiary devices”
Mondaca said that on February 2 he left his house and, after stopping at a service station to buy cigarettes, he made the incendiary devices following Molina’s instructions.
Subsequently, the fire volunteer launched them along routes 68 and F-718.
“He sucked them only once to light them and threw them through the passenger window,” the accused said.
“The day of the fire I did not use all the incendiary devices that I made, so I kept some in a box, which I keep in my bedroom,” he added.
In his statement, the former firefighter detailed that since February 2 he had lost contact with Franco Pinto.
“I also did not receive calls or messages from him until today, where I sent him a WhatsApp with some work information, since I knew from other people that the Conaf brigade members had been terminated for the end of the season,” he said.
The investigative police managed to establish the origin of the fire on Route F-718 and were able to determine the time of the fire thanks to a video that a neighbor recorded shortly after the flames began to spread.
With this information, the authorities reviewed the security cameras in the area and identified a Suzuki S-Presso vehicle that would have been used by Francisco Mondaca.
Both accused They will remain in preventive detention for 180 days while the investigations continue, as ruled by the Valparaíso guarantee jury.
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