A lush oasis of native and exotic plants, Chile's largest botanical garden is nothing but ash and despair. Most of its 400 hectares have been charred by one of the forest fires that have devastated the region.
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The Vina Del Mar National Botanical Garden was caught in the fire that killed 131 people and destroyed entire neighborhoods near Valparaiso, 120 kilometers from Santiago. The victims also include the kindergarten director and members of her family.
Thousands of trees were black, some were lying on the ground, the hills around the gardens were covered in ash. The coastal city's botanical garden used to be considered a “green lung,” but today it resembles “a smoker's lung,” complains park director Alejandro Peirano.
AFP
Designed in 1918 by French architect Georges Dubois, the park was home to 1,300 species of plants and trees, including native and exotic ferns, mountain cypresses, Chilean palms and Japanese cherry trees.
Mr. Peirano tells of the force with which the fire, which jumped from one tree to another, destroyed the park in barely an hour. “If I'm optimistic, I would say five hectares were saved, the rest burned.”
AFP
The park was also home to wildlife including marsupials, gray foxes, Chilean ferrets and many birds.
Hiroshima's trees survived
Among the miraculous survivors of this conflagration is the toromiro, a tree with yellow flowers native to distant Easter Island, extinct in the wild but planted in certain botanical gardens and private collections thanks to seeds preserved several decades ago.
AFP
“We avoided possibly the most painful loss,” consoles Mr. Peirano.
The Peace Garden trees, which grew from the seeds of trees that survived the atomic bomb of Hiroshima in 1945 and are used by Japan around the world, were also spared: although they are “brown from the heat, they remain standing,” says the director of the park with 60 employees.
Most of those living on the site managed to escape as the flames grew closer. But Patricia Araya, head of the nursery, died along with her mother and two granddaughters.
Daniela Gutierrez, 32, who looks after the native cactus collection, remembers “her green thumb, because everything she planted germinated.”
The Vina Del Mar National Botanical Garden was previously hit by major fires in 2013, 2018 and 2022, but they were not as devastating, according to Mr. Peirano, who has managed the park for 10 years.
He says he suspects a crime. An investigation is underway.
After removing the dead trees, the garden hopes to reopen its doors to the public in a few weeks. But if there is another fire of this magnitude, “we will disappear,” fears Mr. Peirano.