"In my case, it was only for the adrenaline, not for economic reasons." Thus declared before the Valparaíso Criminal Court former Conaf brigade member Franco Pinto, accused of being the mastermind of the mega-fire of February 2, 2024, which left 138 dead and 4,000 homes burned in Viña del Mar and Quilpué.
The prosecution also charges him with being the coordinator of a "criminal cell" made up of Conaf officials from the Lago Peñuelas Reserve and volunteers from the Placilla Fire Department involved in generating dozens of forest fires since 2021, in order to generate overtime hours that allowed him to increase his income by 30%.
Pinto was the first among the nine defendants facing qualified life imprisonment to speak yesterday before the judges. There, he admitted that he made devices with matches tied around a cigarette —like those that started the mega-fire—, and that he asked permission from the head of his crew and co-defendant José Arenas to go set fire to the forest, but he denied having participated in generating the one that caused the great catastrophe that occurred 2 years and 8 months ago.
Pinto was denounced as the instigator of the four ignition points that caused the tragedy by the material perpetrators of the same, former firefighters Francisco Mondaca and Elías Salazar. But former brigade member Pinto told the court that it was they who that day called him on their own initiative to let him know to prepare for a workday.
"They call me when they come back from (having started) the fire. But I was at my inoperative workplace," he recounted, explaining that the emergency vehicle he was driving was broken down so he could not fight the fire.
Pinto dissociated Conaf's higher authorities from having been aware of the existence of the WhatsApp group that intentionally generated the fires.
Source:El Mercurio
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