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Biobío Regional Government Strengthens Public-Private Alliance for Wildfire Prevention

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• “We are going to have a riskier season; what happened in 2017 and 2023 were two moments where we suffered extensive burns, and there was a La Niña phenomenon. Therefore, we have seen the need to advance the work of reducing material in the forests,” emphasized Díaz.

As a way to advance preventive work against wildfires affecting the Biobío region during the summer season, the Regional Government has forged a collaborative alliance with the National Wood Corporation (CORMA) and the National Forestry Corporation (CONAF). This aims to strengthen the work carried out with public entities such as SENAPRED and the Regional Presidential Delegation.

This joint effort seeks to contribute to the cleaning of private lands, particularly those with forests adjacent to public roadways, thereby creating firebreaks.

For this reason, the Regional Governor, Rodrigo Díaz, invited mayors from the municipalities most affected by wildfires, such as Penco and Tomé, to encourage wildfire prevention.

“What we are doing is asking municipalities to have a diagnosis of their risks and work plans. Through this, we seek public and private cooperation to achieve a better response, because combating the magnitude of wildfires requires more than just public efforts. That’s why we need private cooperation, and in this case, the Biobío region has a very strong private entity,” explained Regional Governor Rodrigo Díaz.

For his part, the mayor of Penco, Víctor Hugo Figueroa, thanked this initiative as it addresses an issue that public services and municipalities cannot handle within their authority—intervening on private lands. “The Governor invited us to form this alliance and work proactively on cleaning small private properties to create firebreaks. This way, we prevent wildfires from spreading,” said the municipal authority.

“Additionally, it’s worth noting that the major problem in our region is that large forestry companies manage to implement their firebreaks, but small landowners with forests unfortunately lack the capacity to do so in a timely manner,” added the mayor.

Similarly, the mayor of Tomé, Ivonne Rivas, stated that these efforts strengthen collaborative work, aiming to prevent emergencies like those experienced in her municipality in February 2023. “These concrete actions complement the work we are carrying out in each municipality. That’s why it’s very important for these public-private alliances to progress, so we don’t face more wildfires like the one that affected us last February.”