News

Arrested for mega-fire: "I needed, like everyone else, more money. If there are no (disasters), the season ends"

Sponsors

In his statement to prosecutor Osvaldo Ossandón, the former Conaf brigade member admits his involvement and points to the role of Franco Pinto, another detainee in the case.

"Sometimes I told Franco Pinto to start fires because I needed, like everyone else, more money. If there aren't any, the season ends, and there won’t be overtime either. And since Pinto was very ambitious, he talked about big things, like a more expensive car and other stuff; he was always willing to carry out forest fires."

This is part of what he recounted to prosecutor Osvaldo Ossandón and two PDI commissioners—the alleged leader of the illicit association accused by the Public Ministry of operating within Conaf, intentionally causing forest fires (including the one on February 2, which left 136 dead) to increase its members' income.

The squad leader of the mechanized brigade "Palma 30," José Stalin Atenas Gaete (26, high school education), was arrested last Thursday at noon near the 400 block of Troncal Urbano, opposite a pedestrian bridge in Viña del Mar. At the PDI’s Curauma station, he waived his right to remain silent, detailing how the network operated.

According to his testimony, he worked at Conaf from 2016 to 2023, serving in a brigade operating in the Lago Peñuelas National Reserve (RNLP). But it was from 2021 onward that he began participating in starting forest fires, he confessed.

That summer, he said, he met Pinto, the first Conaf brigade member arrested after being reported by firefighter Francisco Mondaca and who has been in preventive detention since May. As pickup truck drivers, Pinto and co-defendant Maximiliano Vélez were under his command, along with brigade member Ángel Barahona. For a few days, a fifth co-defendant, Claudio Gamboa, also joined.

At the time, according to his account, Pinto boasted that the previous season, while working as a water truck driver, "he and another person—whom I don’t know much about—entered the RNLP grounds on a motorcycle, starting multiple fire outbreaks at night, which eventually spiraled out of control and spread over a large area, reaching the city of Quilpué."

"He bragged about it so I’d recognize his ability to start fires and authorize him to do it during work hours. For this, he’d go out in his personal vehicle alone or with Barahona. That was the first time I learned how they operated," he stated.

"At that moment, I understood that starting fires was meant to earn more money through overtime," he recounted, explaining that Pinto carried them out during the hottest and windiest hours, choosing sloped terrain and high-quality fuels to ensure they spread and triggered red alerts.

By the end of the 2022 season, he said, Pinto taught them how to make incendiary devices by tying matches to cigarettes.

Atenas also stated that he has no evidence higher-ranking officials from Conaf’s operations center at "Palma 1" ordered Pinto to cause forest fires, but he did boast about being the "favorite" of an incident commander, whom he identified. He even details that Pinto was accused of stealing fuel, but this commander helped him continue as a brigade member in the 2023-2024 season—a role he used to keep starting fires. Atenas, as his superior, was aware of this activity: "Because as a code, he’d tell me, 'I’m going for a spin, to play soccer,' and I knew he meant starting fires. I always understood."

Messages from prison

Another detainee from last Thursday also chose to testify before the PDI: Maximiliano Barahona (22, high school education), squad leader of Conaf’s "Palma 8" forest brigade in the RNLP. At the Curauma station, he recounted that during the 2021-2022 season, after work, he rode in Pinto’s vehicle with who he now knows is the former Senapred operator and ex-firefighter Elías Inostroza—having seen his arrest in September news reports as the alleged perpetrator of the February 2 mega-fire.

The three drove to the Quintay area, parked, and his two companions walked into a pine forest to collect rusty metal scraps left from a previous fire. The next day, he had to fight a fire in the same spot, leading him to suspect Pinto and Inostroza caused it.

Barahona stated that Pinto has tried contacting him from prison via WhatsApp and Instagram, asking him "to agree on a common version regarding possible statements about his fires, telling me I could be a witness in his favor concerning the investigation into the February 2, 2024, incident and the charges against him."

Source: Subscription edition ofEl Mercurio