Lucas Chiappe had known for a long time that the fire was coming. For decades, the environmentalist had warned that replacing native trees in the Andes mountain range with highly flammable foreign pine was a recipe for disaster.
In early January, flames raced down the Pirque hill and edged closer to his home in the Patagonian town of Epuyén, Argentina, where he had lived since the 1970s. Thirty people with six motor pumps fought for hours, hoses stretched for kilometres, but “there was no way”.
“We had to throw all our equipment into the stream and get the hell out of there,” he says as he recalls fleeing as the inferno engulfed his house. “The dragon chased us until we crossed the river, and we had to speed between two fire columns along a trail barely a kilometre wide.”
Since 5 January, more than 36,000 hectares (90,000 acres) of native forests, grasslands, villages and tourist resorts in Patagonia have been ravaged by wildfires, mainly in the southern Argentine province of Chubut, according to the Federal Emergency Agency (AFE). Greenpeace says the affected area exceeds 40,000 hectares.
Wildfires are also hitting Chile, with at least 18 people killed this month. Environmental groups and workers blame extreme weather, which scientists link to the climate crisis and cuts to national fire-prevention budgets.
“There was a confluence of many climatic factors,” says Andrés Nápoli, director of the Environment and Natural Resources Foundation (Farn). “This year has not had enough snowfall; there are low humidity levels and a high accumulation of combustible elements in the forest” – a reference to monoculture pine plantations, which act as “powder kegs”.
Recent rainfall and the firefighters’ efforts brought momentary relief, but outbreaks reactivated after a prolonged heatwave and strong winds.
President Javier Milei’s government has systematically defunded the National Fire Management Service (SNMF), resulting in a reduction of 81% on last year’s budget.
Prevention efforts, such as building firebreaks and community engagement, have been hampered, with firefighters forced to work in poor conditions and for low salaries.
Alejo Fardjoume, a representative of the national parks’ union, says monthly salaries for firefighters range from 650,000 to 850,000 pesos (£336-£440). According to government statistics, the poverty line for a family of four is 1.3m pesos a month.
The budget cuts, says Nápoli, also affect early-warning systems and aerial support, with firefighting aircraft flight hours being cut from 5,100 to 3,100.
Communities in the area are forming their own firefighting brigades to work alongside the official ones. “We use chainsaws, rakes, hoses, motor pumps – everyday objects,” says Diego Calfuqueo, a raspberry farmer.
Chiappe says solidarity takes precedence over bureaucracy and social classes. “You’ll see some bougie guy, all muddy, carrying a motor pump in a spectacular 4x4 truck,” he adds.
Last week, Milei – who did not travel to the affected area – posted an AI-generated image of himself shaking hands with firefighters on Instagram, calling them “heroes”. “It’s a little hypocritical and cynical,” says a local firefighter, Hernán Mondino, adding that many of his colleagues have to take on other jobs to make ends meet.
According to Hernán Giardini, forests coordinator at Greenpeace, government policy now aligns with Milei’s claims that a human-made climate crisis does not exist.
“He defunded the forestry law, which is part of the funds allocated to the provinces for the care of native forests, used by the Patagonian provinces for many related issues, such as wildfires,” he says. “Argentina ranks among the 15 countries that deforest the most worldwide.”
The crisis has ignited unfounded theories and scapegoating, with the government pushing the narrative that a group of Indigenous people in Chile and Argentina, the Mapuches, are to blame. Last week, the national security minister alleged on X that “preliminary evidence suggests that these crimes are linked to terrorist groups calling themselves Mapuche”.
“If one people is defending their territory and setting limits on this extractivist capitalism, it is the Mapuche people,” says Mauro Millán, a Mapuche leader from the Pillan Mahuiza community, near Los Alerces national park, which was also affected by the wildfires.
Millán says the government was “rehashing the absurd theory of the arsonist Mapuche”, but that “nobody believes them any more”. Last year, he says, police raided his community due to similar allegations, but the case was dropped.
Mapuche communities are not the only ones being blamed. Some politicians and media pundits have blamed Israeli citizens and even the Israeli government, reviving an old antisemitic conspiracy theory, the “Andinia Plan”, which claims that Jews want to establish a state in Patagonia.
Facundo Milman, a specialist in Jewish culture, says the theory was created by Nazi sympathisers, including the sons of Adolf Eichmann, one of the architects of the Holocaust who was captured by Israeli agents in Buenos Aires in 1960. Milman says that discourse had long been confined to far right circles, but is now also used by people who oppose Milei.
Carlos Díaz Mayer, the prosecutor investigating the wildfires, confirms that the working hypothesis is that at least some of the blazes were not “natural”, adding: “We found accelerants in the place where the fire likely started.”
He added, however, that the Chubut prosecutor’s office had found no evidence pointing to the allegations agianst Mapuches or Israelis.
“Those are conspiracy theories that have no basis. They do not correlate with anything in reality,” says Giardini.
The consequences of the fires, according to Nápoli, are evident and will be long-lasting. “We are talking about an extremely biodiverse area, with places that have even been designated as protected sites for the preservation of the huemul deer,” he says, highlighting that the local population’s housing, jobs and health will be seriously affected.
“The trees will remain standing,” he says, “but the land will be left as ashes.”
