Agriculture Minister Esteban Valenzuela declared that the appearance of four simultaneous outbreaks, curiously each one at a distance of 1.7 kilometers, shows the planning of these fires.

Valenzuela insisted on the need to prioritize the passage of the forest and rural fire prevention law when the parliamentarians return from recess next March.

The initiative, stalled in the National Congress, obliges both the State and landowners to define urban-rural interface zones in territorial planning and to create firebreaks, strengthens forest management instruments and establishes penalties for non-compliance.

The fires, which began on February 2, affected the communes of Viña del Mar, Villa Alemana, Quilpue and Limache and are considered the worst catastrophe since the 2010 earthquake.

The intentionality today is completely confirmed.

In fact, there is a prosecutor exclusively in charge of the investigation’, said the governor of Valparaiso, Rodrigo Mundaca.

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