Sawt Falasteen - Chilean official says huge fire to be controlled by Friday

Manuel Monsalve, an assistant to the interior minister, said that given the state of the fire, the weather outlook and the resources available, "the forecast is to be able to control the fire during the day."

Officials had said earlier that at least two people died and some 400 homes were damaged or destroyed in the fire, which broke out Thursday and spread so quickly that the government declared a state of emergency.

But early Friday, Monsalve put the toll at one dead, 30 people slightly injured and 130 houses destroyed.

The overcount, he suggested, came as people combined estimates from different agencies.

The fire had spread rapidly, fanned by strong gusts of wind, roaring from the upper areas of town down ravines and hills in just hours to the most inhabited sections of the city, 120 kilometers (75 miles) from the capital Santiago.

Monsalve said the blaze has burned an area of 125 hectares (310 acres).

Several neighborhoods and one informal settlement were ordered evacuated.

President Gabriel Boric's administration declared a state of emergency due to the "public calamity," Monsalve announced earlier.

"There was a very quick response to the beginning of the fire but despite this, as a result of the location where the fire developed, the weather conditions, the wind and the presence of combustible material, it spread very aggressively and quickly," he said.

The fire was fanned by wind gusts of 40 to 50 kilometers per hour, complicating work for the more than 400 firefighters and 150 forest rangers called to battle it.

The city's fire commander, Patricio Brito, had earlier put the number of damaged homes at 400.

Boric sought to reassure those affected, tweeting, "We will not leave you."

P.Tamimi--SF-PST