Video: ‘No Water in the Hydrants’: Communities Left Defenseless Against Chile’s Deadliest Wildfire

one of the deadliest wildfires in decades ripped through Chile’s coastal cities of Vina Del mar and Quilpué. It was a perfect storm of extreme climate conditions and management failures that left thousands of people vulnerable. Urban expansion, driven by unregulated housing development in the hills, has taxed the water grid beyond what it was designed to handle. And the magnitude of this wildfire exposed that weakness. Weeks later, some residents and firefighters questioned whether a lack of water to fight the fast moving wildfire contributed to the high death toll. The New York Times’ spoke with firefighters and residents in the two cities who say that some hydrants on that critical day had little-to- no water pressure. Escape routes quickly became bottlenecks and death traps. At least 134 people died in the inferno and more remain missing. Rodrigo Mundaca, one of Chile’s staunchest water rights advocates, is currently governor of the region where the wildfire hit. Chile is one of the few countries in the world with a privatized water system. This climate catastrophe has reopened a long standing debate in the country about unequal access to water, which often fails to reach the poorest communities and leaves them defenseless to wildfires that are increasing in frequency and magnitude. In Vina Del Mar’s El Olivar neighborhood, residents who lost homes or loved ones are demanding better protection and, in some cases, compensation. “The majority of those who died in the wildfire lived in informal settlements along exposed hillsides, places where water companies are not required to put any hydrants, at all. “The closest hydrant to Ariel Orellana’s mother’s house in Quilpué was nearly half a mile away. He lost his mother, her husband and his 14-year-old sister. Esval, which controls water rights for the region, denied wrongdoing and said that pressure fed to its hydrants, may have dropped due to the sudden surge in demand. I think our responsibility is none. because we are sure that the hydrants were working. I understand the frustration of the people. I understand that they were expecting something different. But we are completely sure that what we did is 10 times what the regulation asked from us. If the hydrants are working properly and we are sure about that, there is no legal responsibility from Esval. But Daniel Garín, a longtime volunteer firefighter, documented how he and his team struggled to find water to save people’s homes during the worst of the firefight. A number of residents in Quilpué are now seeking compensation from Esval for damages to their homes that they say resulted from hydrants with no water. In march, Chile’s Congress said it would investigate the handling of the wildfire, including a lack of evacuation plans and lack of water to hydrants. And the country’s Ministry of Public Works is investigating specific complaints that Esval fall failed to provide adequate water to combat the wildfire.