CMPC Coordinates with Minister of Public Security Actions for Wildfire Season

Within the framework of the start of the 2025-2026 wildfire season, the CEO of CMPC, Francisco Ruiz-Tagle, held a meeting with the head of the Public Security portfolio, Luis Cordero. During this meeting, the company presented an updated overview of occurrence, causality, and territorial risks, along with the main operational reinforcements it will implement to face a summer projected to be especially demanding for firefighting.

The meeting took place in a context where official figures show an increase in fires even in months historically considered to have low occurrence (from July to early December), with regional increases that, according to Conaf information, vary between 6% and 44% compared to the previous year.

This is compounded by background information alerting to new signs of intentionality, including simultaneous multi-focus fires near populated areas and repeated events at critical points. According to CMPC records, between July 1 and December 5, the company has faced 61 fires, approximately half of which have characteristics of being intentional.

EARLY DETECTION

The company's general manager thanked and valued the meeting held with the Government authority, emphasizing that for CMPC it is essential to work on the early detection of potential fire outbreaks and to educate citizens to prevent disasters. "We are interested in coordination, prevention, and the protection of the population. There are areas we have identified where the occurrence of fires is definitely higher, so the objective of this is also to alert the authority about where the most serious incidents are happening in order to work primarily on prevention. We have repeated the same thing every year, in Chile there are no fires that start by themselves, 100% of fires in Chile are caused by people. A regrettably high percentage of them are intentional, and there are also many that occur due to negligence, so this is an absolute call for prevention," stated Francisco Ruiz-Tagle.

Nationally, the past season recorded 5,890 fires (+4%), while the southern macro-zone reached 4,714 events (+0.6%). According to data collected by Corma and Conaf, 40% of fires correspond to negligent causes, 27% to intentional causes, 11% to undetermined causes, and 27% to cases with no information.

In the case of lands managed by CMPC, the La Araucanía Region historically concentrates the highest occurrence, especially in the communes of Collipulli, Ercilla, Angol, and Los Sauces. The company also presented a technical simulation based on a real fire that occurred in Collipulli, which showed that a 2,500-hectare event could have escalated to 12,000 hectares in a matter of hours if coinciding with adverse weather conditions, even reaching inhabited areas.

REINFORCED DEPLOYMENT

CMPC also detailed the reinforced deployment for the 2025-2026 season, which includes 84 active multi-purpose brigades, patrols exceeding 15,000 kilometers on more than 300 high-risk routes, and the simultaneous operation of deterrent brigades, lookouts, aerial and ground combat resources, in addition to a property surveillance system and preventive patrol coordinated with local authorities. This is complemented by a network of 523 community prevention committees, currently dedicated to risk assessment and the construction of local action plans in coordination with Senapred.

"Fires can be stopped. There are other countries in the world that have heat and wind situations similar to Chile's, and the occurrence in Chile is particularly high. That's why I want to be very clear that this is people's responsibility. We have a fire center that knows very well and has information and data on all fire occurrences, so if we cross-reference, we know perfectly well where the fires are originating, and we obviously work based on that information," detailed the leader of the forestry company.

During the meeting, the company reiterated its willingness to continue actively collaborating in regional, provincial, and communal COGRID roundtables; to maintain the permanent exchange of meteorological and territorial information; and to strengthen operational coordination to ensure earlier and more effective firefighting during the months of highest risk.