A boy and his boat help Chile firefighters combat blazes

Chilean wildfires destroy hundreds of homes, endanger world’s smallest deer

As his parents fought wildfires threatening their home in southern Chile, 13-year-old Lucas Cespedes decided to take action, ferrying firefighters across the local river in a small yellow rowing boat to help them put out the flames.

The Andean country is battling some of the worst wildfires in years that have claimed 24 lives and burned through over 340,000 hectares (840,158 acres), affecting more than 5,400 people, destroying over a thousand homes and burning up the habitats of vulnerable woodland animals.

Lucas Cespedes, 13, rows his boat during an interview with Reuters, close to his house on the shores of the river Futa, on the outskirts of Valdivia, Chile February 9, 2023. REUTERS/Cristobal Saavedra Escobar

“I ferried people across the river because I was desperate, my parents were fighting the fire and I was very scared that the fire would reach my house,” said Cespedes, who lives with his family in an area only accessible by water.

“There was no other person who could ferry people, so the only hope was me.”

Cespedes rowed the firefighters across 30 meters (98 ft)of the Futa River, a mighty waterway in Chile’s south near the city of Valdivia, about 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) south of the capital Santiago. He has kept doing so as fires have raged on.

“Now I continue helping, I continue ferrying people across, bringing the firefighters,” added Cespedes.

***Firefighters work during a wildfire in Santa Juana, near Concepcion, Chile, February 8, 2023 REUTERS/Juan Gonzalez***

The fires have been concentrated in the agricultural and forestry regions of central south Chile and come in the midst of a prolonged drought of over a decade that has impacted farming, city landscapes and mining in the world’s no. 1 copper producer.

“We call on everyone who can to take care of the forests which are currently on fire, and also of our animals, specimens of vital importance,” said Valentina Aravena, the manager at a wildlife rehabilitation center in Chillan.

Authorities said some 2,180 people have been injured and 1,180 houses have been destroyed, with most of the deaths and damages in the south-central Biobio, Araucania and Ñuble regions.

A Pudu, the world’s smallest deer, rescued from a wildfire, is seen at a wildlife rehabilitation center of Concepcion University, as wildfires continue in the central-southern zone of Chile, in Chillan, Chile, February 8, 2023. REUTERS/Ivan Alvarado

In the rehabilitation center in Chillan, the capital of the Ñuble region, veterinarians treated burns on animals native to the woodlands, such as monito del monte, a small nocturnal marsupial, and pudus, the world’s smallest deer.

Climate change increases hot and dry conditions that help fires spread faster, burn longer and rage more intensely. (Reuters)