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Former Senapred Director and Mega-Fire: "Those Who Failed at Conaf Must Take Responsibility"

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"Looking back on where I might have gone wrong, I think my mistake was trusting that Conaf, which was supposed to provide the information needed to activate timely evacuations for the threatened population, would do what they were supposed to."

One week before the first anniversary of the mega-fire in Viña del Mar, Quilpué, and Villa Alemana, this is the reflection of Álvaro Hormazábal, former director of the National Disaster Prevention and Response Service (Senapred). He was the first authority in the national emergency system to lose his position after the tragedy that devastated much of the Lago Peñuelas National Reserve and the Botanical Garden. Additionally, it destroyed five thousand homes, leaving twelve thousand victims, and in its most dramatic consequence, killed 136 people—mostly elderly—who received evacuation alerts when the fire was already burning their houses.

President Gabriel Boric requested his resignation after Hormazábal responded to criticism from the mayors of the Frente Amplio, Macarena Ripamonti (Viña del Mar) and Valeria Melipillán (Quilpué, not reelected), regarding disorganization in the distribution of emergency housing. "I questioned that they were in an expectant or external stance to the emergency, rather than solving problems," recalls Hormazábal, a former tactical diver and retired Army officer who served for 23 years in the Aysén Region and for eight years in Tarapacá as director of the Regional Emergency Office before assuming leadership of Senapred through high-level public appointment.

Today, he says he does not regret making those statements, even though an advisor immediately warned him afterward that they would cost him his job.

"No, no. I am at peace, and I believe it had to be said. You can’t cover up that kind of negligence," he reaffirms, accusing that the day after the emergency, four thousand of the seven thousand mattresses Senapred sent to Viña del Mar were returned because the municipality claimed it lacked staff to receive them.

He also insists that his departure was for political, not technical, reasons. "A decision was made like in a Roman circus. To calm people down," he asserts. But he emphasizes that ongoing investigations are proving him right when, facing criticism for delays in activating the Emergency Alert System (SAE), he explained that it was because Conaf provided no prognosis—projection of the fire's advance toward populated areas—"not good, not bad," nor were they alerted that the fire was out of control.

"The findings of the Special Investigative Commission (CEI) of Parliament and the Comptroller’s report—released a week ago—confirm what we’ve been saying all along: that we did not receive the necessary information from Conaf. On the other hand, the municipalities did not implement evacuation plans as they should have."

Ignored Alerts

—The CEI also criticizes Senapred for having a passive role rather than real coordination during the emergency.

"The law states that emergencies are coordinated through the Disaster Risk Management Committee (Cogrid), which at the municipal level is chaired by mayors and at the regional level by presidential delegates. As national director, my role was to support whatever the Cogrid required."

On February 2 of this year, the Cogrid—which brings together all authorities and services in charge of the emergency—were activated after 7:00 PM at the municipal level and at 10:00 PM regionally, when the fire was already wreaking havoc in the communities of Viña del Mar and Quilpué. People received SAE alerts starting at 6:32 PM, when their houses were already burning, and they were desperately trying to flee, clogging escape routes.

Hormazábal states that his conscience is clear because he activated the SAE alerts within two minutes and 15 seconds of receiving Conaf’s request. "But by then, it wasn’t about a projection. The fire was already in the city. If they had warned us in time, at 4:00 PM, by 10:02 AM we could have been sending messages to start the evacuation process," he says.

According to the CEI report, Conaf ignored successive alerts about the fire’s advance, provided by a surveillance tower and a reconnaissance plane under its administration, which could have allowed evacuations to begin an hour earlier. It notes that diverting the observation aircraft to another fire in Villa Alemana starting at 5:12 PM left Conaf blind during critical moments when the fire was spreading uncontrollably toward Quilpué and Viña del Mar. The recent Comptroller’s report confirmed that Conaf did not use the software that projects such fire spread.

"The most appropriate thing would have been for Conaf to tell us they couldn’t provide the prognosis. I was a military officer for 25 years. Without information, you plan for the worst-case scenario. If they had alerted me: 'the system is down, it’s not working,' I would have ordered a preventive evacuation because we wouldn’t know what would happen. At no point did they indicate that or say they lacked aerial visibility of the fire’s advance," he says.

He insists he was meticulous in documenting the 256 messages and communications he had with other authorities during the emergency, including then-Conaf executive director Christian Little, while awaiting a summons from the prosecutor’s office investigating potential criminal liability of state officials during the mega-fire. These records would prove that Senapred not only did not receive information but exhausted all means to obtain it.

"Now, the important thing is to find out why Conaf didn’t provide the prognosis. That’s what worries me most. They should come clean and say: 'Look, we didn’t provide it because, you know, the license wasn’t there, the equipment failed, or the wind was so strong we couldn’t deliver it—and we didn’t notify you.' I think this needs to be determined so it doesn’t happen again," he argues.

"We asked for the information, and they didn’t provide it. This must be clarified to give peace to the families, clear my name, and ensure those truly responsible are no longer in their roles if they’re still there. Those who failed at Conaf must take responsibility and explain why," he states, indicating he is prepared to take legal action against the state.

Source:El Mercurio