In a decision released on Saturday, Judge Jeanette Oliva spoke of a “direct intention to cause the fire and, at the very least, a possible intention” to commit a malicious act causing death. Ignacio Mondaca, a firefighter from the Valparaiso City Fire Department’s 13th Company, and Franco Pinto, an official from Chile’s National Forest Corporation, will remain in detention in a centre in the capital Santiago for a maximum period of six months. Oliva added that Pinto and Mondaca, as a forestry officer and volunteer firefighter, respectively, “manipulated information regarding the weather conditions” that ended up favouring, according to the investigation, the rapid spread of the fire. The police had announced on Friday the detention of the two suspects, including Mondaca, 22, who had joined the fire brigade a year and a half ago. The Chilean Public Ministry said on Saturday that “the investigative work allowed [Mondaca] to be placed at six other previous fires that affected the Peñuelas Reserve.” The violent fire started on 2 February, in four simultaneous outbreaks in the Peñuelas Lake Natural Park, near the city of Viña del Mar, 110 kilometres northwest of the capital, Santiago, and spread rapidly due to strong winds and extreme temperatures. The high population density in hard-to-reach terrain, added to the prolonged drought in Chile, made it difficult to extinguish the flames, which reached the municipalities of Quilpué and Villa Alemana. At least 137 people died, around 16,000 were affected and thousands of homes were destroyed by the fire that devastated the tourist region of Valparaiso, according to the final report from the Chilean authorities. On Friday, the Minister of the Interior, Carolina Tohá, assured that the investigation will allow us to clarify “how a person who is in that institution behaved in this way” and asked that the case “not tarnish the function and recognition that [the Fire Brigade] has in Chilean society.” “We are completely devastated by what happened, it is a completely isolated incident,” the commander of the Valparaiso City Fire Department’s 13th Company told the press. “We have been protecting Valparaiso for over 170 years and we cannot allow such things to happen,” added Vicente Maggiolo. The Chilean President, Gabriel Boric, described the February fire, recorded in the middle of the southern summer, as the “greatest tragedy” that the country has faced since the 2010 earthquake, which was followed by a tsunami, which caused 500 deaths. Read Also: Two arrested for links to the fire that killed 137 people in Chile (Portuguese version)