Chubut Wildfires Declared Intentionally Set

During the early morning hours, the fire maintained sustained and high-intensity activity, advancing into new forest areas without giving emergency teams a break. The fire's advance has already destroyed at least eleven homes and continues to affect vast areas of native forest, with its front moving towards the town of El Maitén, within the Andean Region. The minister explained that the size and dynamics of the fire's 'head' make containment extremely difficult. In this regard, he confirmed the arrival of reinforcements, including 63 firefighters from the province of Córdoba, under an interprovincial cooperation scheme. Regarding long-term consequences, the minister stated that the environmental damage is irreversible on a generational scale. He also highlighted that the initial focus was located in a way that cut off the only access road to Puerto Patriada, a detail that reinforces the presumption of a planned intentional act. Although a second expert assessment, involving federal forces, did not yield definitive conclusions, the chemical laboratory analysis solidified the hypothesis of an intentionally set fire. The official emphasized that the fire started in an area of extremely dense vegetation, difficult to access even for trained personnel, and at a strategic point from which rapid spread was predictable. Until now, the flames intensified during the day and subsided at night, allowing firefighters to advance containment efforts. This pattern was abruptly broken. In this context, the minister stated that the immediate objective is to slow the fire's advance and mitigate its effects while waiting for a change in weather conditions, particularly the arrival of rain or a drop in temperatures, which currently remain unusually high for the region. Regarding the origin of the blaze, Iturrioz was categorical in ruling out an accidental or negligent cause. 'There was a criminal intent here that we had not seen before,' he stated. Iturrioz recalled that the last similar fire, recorded in 2021, took nearly a month to be completely extinguished, and he warned about the extreme strain on the personnel fighting the flames. He detailed that initial assessments allowed pinpointing the origin and detecting the presence of accelerants and hydrocarbons. Firefighters and volunteers work 15 to 16-hour days, making operational rotation essential.