Chile Forum

Red wrote:Your comment, which px addressed, about the patagonia being a fire-free zone is curious.

It's my understanding that prior to a couple of hundred years ago there was no fire. Even prehistoric man seemed to manage their fires in caves successfully,

I was there during the fire. I suggest there is a parallel to the Reno fire last November or SoCal when the Santa Anas are blowing. Reno has access to assets. Professional firefighters with experience, airbases with retardant, airports, helicopters, ... And yet the 60mph winds made all but ground assets sit out the party and even the ground teams were defending homes rather than fighting the fire, at least to start with. The Paine fire was the same, but without available assets and timely notification. All the law suits in the world won't change the reality that once the fire started it was going to run, and run fast. The law suits might help stop the fire starting in the first place. Note that there was a helicopter on the ramp on Friday and it was still too windy to fly but at least they had an endless suppy of accessible water.

I'd be interested in hearing your perspective on the DC-10. Standing under it when it dumps 12,000 pounds of retartant would be a sticky situation. I've seen that their mission requires a large run out area so it can't be used in mountainous fires, hence its successful introduction to the big Texas fires last year.

Good afternoon...

Does anyone have any new information about park openings yet? I had read the bit in la tercera about possibly opening the circuit by the end of this week...but so many rumors are flying about.

Gracias por todo su ayuda.....

patagoniax wrote:.
It grows back. And quicker than a chilean ecology consultant can say "we need more money to study this."

luegodelincendio2.jpg

i think its pretty simple, any plant growing in that area in the first place is pretty god damn tough!

Grey refugio was opened Jan 26, and the W and O routes were opened the 27th. As far as I can tell, Paine Grande is still closed. verticepatagonia.com runs Grey refugio, and says it is opened. The Lonely Planet forum has a thread with people near the park contributing, and that's where I got the W and O route info.

From vertice's facebook page:

DESDE EL DÍA DE AYER: TODA LA "W" Y EL "CIRCUITO" ABIERTOS A TODOS LOS CAMINANTES....GREY-DICKON Y PERROS FUNCIONANDO AL 100%, SENDEROS TOTALMENTE OPERATIVOS, CATAMARN HIELOS PATAGONICOS QUE CRUZA EL LAGO PEHOE FUNCIONANDO EN SUS HORARIOS NORMALES....LOS ESPERAMOS!!!!

FROM THE DAY OF YESTERDAY: ALL THE "W" AND THE "CIRCUIT" OPEN TO ALL WALKERS....GREY-DICKON AND DOGS RUNNING AT 100%, COMPLETELY OPERATIONAL PATHS, CATAMARN PATAGONIAN ICE CROSSING THE PEHOE LAKE RUNNING ON NORMAL SCHEDULE....THE HOPE! (Translated by Bing)

I'm leaving to hike the W route on sunday and will report back (although hoping nothing to report)

Opened the door to the smell of burnt wood. The sky is covered in a brown fog. Looks and smells like the smoke made it up to Santiago. Was that from a change in the weather or gradual?

patagoniax wrote:.
Recent rain and massive intervention seem to have controlled the Torres del Paine hotspot breakout fire in the area of Estancia Lazo, at the southern edge of the national park. The latest CONAF figures say that 17,600 hectares (43,000 acres) were burned.

But meanwhile, the prime suspect, Rotem Singer and the preliminary legal proceedings here in Puerto Natales:

As the case develops, the defence is offering a tiny payment to avoid criminal prosecution: US$5,000. The actual fines for starting the fire, under the current law, might well be much less if he were convicted. That observation has a lot of people here convinced once more that in Chile, the law is a donkey.

The fire caused millions of dollars in damage, costs, and losses, and they want to buy their way out of prosecution with ....$5,000. And the negotiated suspension of prosecution would result in no admission of guilt. Oh, and the defence says they will get some, um, volunteers to do a little reforestation.

Rotem is facing both criminal and civil charges. But the "person found to be responsible" and not Rotem by name, is the subject of a lawsuit by the owners of Estancia Lazo. The suspension of criminal proceedings to determine the person responsible for the fire could complicate the civil case, and result in the problem of establishment of responsibility shifting to civil rather than criminal determination.

oh the famous no name law suits you can do in chile! really want to try one of these one day with a car accident and have the government responsible for bad road design!,

momof3, the smoke in santiago is from the fires burning a little closer to the city in valpo etc... it happens most summers!

momof3 wrote:Opened the door to the smell of burnt wood. The sky is covered in a brown fog. Looks and smells like the smoke made it up to Santiago. Was that from a change in the weather or gradual?

Apparently from fires near Pichilemu:
http://www.latercera.com/noticia/nacion ... nana.shtml

patagoniax wrote:.
Rotem will also pay 4,850,000 pesos (about US$10,100)

If they want to rent the Mars water bomber from B.C. they could get about 35 minutes of service ($17,000/hour) sounds like he got a good deal...

patagoniax wrote:.

Looks like the Israeli, Rotem Singer, who was charged with starting the Torres del Paine fire isn't going to be criminally prosecuted. At the proceedings here in Puerto Natales his defence team struck a deal with the court and prosecutors to "conditionally suspend" the prosecution of the case.

According to what we are hearing this afternoon, the US$5000 offer didn't quite cut it. In the last post on this, we understood that the defence team had offered that much to avoid the formal prosecution. In the US or Canada, that wouldn't even pay for the parking and lunch for the court reporter.

The deal reportedly approved will have Rotem working as a "volunteer" in a reforestation organisation run by the Jewish National Fund, which for some reason the Chilean press largely elected to refer to by its Hebrew name, Keren Kayemet, which was formed back in 1901 by the Fifth Zionist Congress as a means to acquire land for what was believed at the time to be an eventual new Israel.

Rotem will also pay 4,850,000 pesos (about US$10,100) which will go to CONAF, and will promise to behave himself for three years. His probation, as part of the conditional suspension of the prosecution, reportedly includes having to stay in Chile and satisfactorily work on the reforestation project for two years.

The agreement for the terms of Rotem's probation is believed to have been partly the result of intense negotiation between the Israeli diplomatic staff and the Chilean government, and that the local judge's approval was largely pro forma and theatre.

The reforestation programme to be run by the Jewish National Fund is to be called "Torres del Paine - Black to Green." An estimated 50,000 plants will be provided for the efforts in the park. There was no report about any restitution for the damages to adjacent estancia Lazo. Rotem may still face civil proceedings brought by the owners of that property.

Local Israelis who live in Puerto Natales were conspicuous at the Tribunales, and when news of the suspension was released, news was quickly distributed to English-language news sites, were several factual errors were observed in the reporting.

And that's what's in the news from here in Natales today.

Very interesting.

Well, I know how much pleasure you get out of writing your posts and didn't think any input from me could add to that pleasure. Also, taking care of a sick husband tends to sap one's social graces. I apologise and will try to expand my "very interesting" a bit for you but I can probably only summon some random thoughts.

This Rotem seems to have gotten a worse deal than the Czech tourist who started the last big fire. I wondered why that was. The Czech did admit to starting the fire and did seem genuinely horrified at what he had done. But he paid his small fine and went home. His government did offer some sort of restitution, although I can't remember if it took the form of just money or also sending experts (in fires? in parks? in reforestation?). I did search around and try to see if anything ever really happened about this but only found references to their promises and nothing concrete about what they actually did or didn't do.

The roughly US$10,000 is way beyond the sum mentioned as the maximum fine under the Ley de Bosques (or Ley del Bosque?) which the media told us, was all they would be able to squeeze out of him. This, in fact, led to some barn door reactions by authorities and promises to give the law some teeth in the future. This, in turn, made me wonder why it seemed preferable to Rotem (or his lawyers, or the Israeli government) to avoid the court proceedings if it was not going to be a big deal financially and he couldn't be jailed for longer than 60 days (not that I would want to spend 60 days in jail). According to his lawyers there was little direct evidence to link him to the fire. If that was so, why not go to court and watch the government try to win its case? Even if they won, the consequences did not seem catastrophic.

The fact that part of the deal was for Rotem to remain in Chile for two years and actually have some hands on time with the reforestation - or whatever the plan is - was also interesting to me. Perhaps I missed something along the way as I have mainly used your posts to follow the story, but I don't remember anyone mentioning the possibility that the outcome of the legal issues included remaining in the country beyond the time before the trial. It seemed the plot was simpler than that and would end with a slap on the wrist for Rotem and a cheque from the Israeli government.

Since some of the things you mentioned were surprising, I found them interesting. I probably should have included a thank you with my comment as you took the time to write such an informative post, one which interested me. So, a belated thank you. In future, if I cannot summon more than a couple of words, I will mutter my "very interesting' to myself for fear of causing offense by the paucity of my input.

Sleepless nights. As they say, tell me about it.

I've been following this thread on and off and noted that some Israelis had made themselves unwelcome by their behaviour.

Could an attitude like the below recorded have anything to do with that?

Readers from Chile and Argentina may be interested in this rant from Yehuda, who is apparently the integrant of the Nahal Haredi unit of the IDF, a batallion under the control of religious extremists, and because of his anger, he appears to have become careless with the inner secrets of his sect. That Patagonia is somehow a “planned acquisition” for zionist Jews has been suspected for a long time. Does Yehuda confirm these suspicions in his careless rant? Judge by yourself.

After reading your pathetic notes only tell you one thing:
And although I am Jewish Jerusalem and Israel is my home forever, live in Patagonia like many Chileans Israelis. We are entitled to vacation where they want.
Your you care for the soldiers of the IDF visit patagonia … the world is concerned when you see as you reach Palestinians to their land infected with hatred and resentment. Country arriving Palestinian violence … there are marches and protests are your flags Palestinian Flames, traveling with chaos … the world does not want and never will have homeland … but never Yerushalaim eternal capital and indivisible part of ISRAEL …. And Patagonia is ours! Viv WITH YOUR exile alongside your daughter.

I guess if it's collectively your property then you have a right to burn it down as you see fit.

It seems that the affair has received very little international attention in the west once the identity of the true culprit was revealed for reasons which are obvious.

An Israeli soldier set fire to the “Torres del Paine” national park in the southern region of Patagonia in Chile on past 28 December 2011, allegedly while “burning toilet paper”. Meanwhile (3 January 2012), the fire has consumed between 12.000 and “at least 20.000” hectares of forest according to reports from Chilean media . Current status (Twitter, in Spanish) .

The Torres del Paine National Park has been set ablaze and the poor Chileans have lost a major source of national pride and income. The international community and the major “friends of nature” remained silent, watching the fire devour the most beautiful paradise of nature on the earth.

The correspondent continues:

The Israeli military censors immediately banned the correspondents working for international newspapers newspapers, TV and media from reporting about the truth and true extent of what Israeli military officer, Rotem Singer (רותם זינגר) of the IDF, a resident of Ness Ziona (מנס ציונ), did. He burnt down between “over 11,000 hectares” (initial reports) and “over 20.000 hectares” (reported today 3 January) of the best-known Chilean Environmental Sanctuary, the National Park Torres del Pain in Patagonia.

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