Firefighter accused of deliberately starting fires so he could be a ‘hero’

A volunteer firefighter accused of starting deadly fires only to put them out and be declared a ‘hero’ has been arrested by police.

Elías Antonio Salazar, 39, is accused of deliberately starting a series of forest fires in Chile which killed 137 people and destroyed 2,000 homes in February, triggering an official ‘state of catastrophe’ in the region.

Mr Salazar is the third person to be arrested in connection with the fires, with fellow firefighter Ignacio Mondaca and Franco Pinto, a worker at the national forest agency, having been in custody since May.

The trio are alleged to have co-ordinated throwing lit cigarettes from their cars onto bone-dry vegetation in at least three different spots around Viña del Mar, during the height of a record heat wave earlier this year.

Caption: Firefighter who wanted to be a ‘hero’ arrested after allegedly starting blaze killing 137
Provider: AP

Mr Pinto is accused of instigating the plot in an effort to gain more money through working overtime.

Following his arrest on Monday, Mr Salazar was fired from his job at Senapred, the national disaster prevention and response agency.

Investigators also removed a computer and documents from his home.

Guillermo Gálvez, a senior detective, told journalists that Mr Salazar’s main motivation was that he liked to “participate and be a hero, helping out once the emergencies were happening”.

Mr Salazar had previously been disciplined, it was reported, for heading on his own to attend fires, in violation of strict firefighting protocol that required him to report for duty with colleagues.

He is due to appear in court on Tuesday.

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