Dorothy Pérez's Harsh Criticism of CONAF Over the Mega-Fire: "Chileans Died"
The head of the Comptroller General of the Republic, Dorothy Pérez, was the surprising figure at the 2025 National Business Meeting (Enade). In a 48-minute speech that garnered a standing ovation from attendees, the comptroller reviewed the irregularities detected by the public sector oversight body, also addressing the failures and omissions identified in the State's response to the 2024 mega-fire.
First, Pérez discussed the findings of the Comptroller's report on reconstruction, confirming that as of December 2024, 83% of affected families had not received any state benefits.
However, the comptroller emphasized that "we also detected something perhaps more painful: despite having the platforms and software, CONAF did not perform timely modeling to inform SENAPRED about the potential direction of the fire's spread."
This projection of the disaster, she indicated, would have allowed crews to address fire containment in time and "to promptly warn citizens to evacuate." But the evacuation never occurred, and the consequences were devastating: 138 deaths.
Source:Soychile.cl
