Two people were arrested this Friday for allegedly having caused the megafire that devastated several towns in the coastal region of Valparaíso and which left 137 dead and thousands of homes destroyed.

The first arrest was reported by the authorities at a press conference and corresponds to a 22-year-old firefighter who, according to local media, was a volunteer for the institution more than a year ago in the 13th Company of Placilla, in Valparaíso, 110 kilometers northwest of Santiago.

“The field work, the gathering of evidence, the analysis and the exchange of information was what made it possible to locate, establish behavioral patterns and geographical publications of movements (of the detained firefighter),” the director of the Police of Investigations (PDI), Eduardo Cerna.

The Chilean Minister of the Interior, Carolina Tohá, said at the same press point that “there is compelling evidence of a very varied type with respect to this case” and that “this It is not a completed investigation, but he has taken a vital step in these hours.” Tohá assured that the investigation will make it possible to elucidate “how a person who is in that institution had behavior of this type” and asked that the case “not tarnish the function and recognition that (the Corps of Firefighters) has in Chilean society”.

The second arrest was confirmed on social networks by the Valparaíso Prosecutor’s Office, after 9:00 p.m. local time (2:00 GMT), which indicated that both arrested people will be formally charged throughout Saturday. It would be a Conaf official.

Chile lived at the beginning of February the deadliest wave of fires in its history and which became the worst tragedy since the 2010 earthquake. The fire began on February 2 in the morning in four simultaneous outbreaks in the Lake Peñuelas Natural Park and spread quickly due to strong gusts of wind and the extreme temperatures of those days in the hills surrounding the city of Viña del Mar that also jumped to the towns of Quilpué and Villa Alemana, all located in the Valparaíso region.

The high population density in difficult-to-access terrain, added to the prolonged drought in Chile, made extinction tasks difficult. The regional governor, Rodrigo Mundaca, recalled in statements to the media that the authorities suspected the intention of the fire from the beginning and stressed that “losing 137 lives is irreparable damage and deserves the maximum punishment.” “All of us Viñamarinos knew that this had been an intentional attack,” said the mayor of Viña del Mar, Macarena Ripamonti.