Ammon News - Chilean firefighters were battling rapidly expanding wildfires Saturday that officials fear have claimed around 10 lives and are threatening hundreds of homes, prompting the president to declare a state of emergency.

About a dozen fires have been raging since Friday.

The blazes are concentrated in the Vina del Mar and Valparaiso tourist regions, where they have ravaged thousands of hectares of forest, cloaked coastal cities in a dense fog of gray smoke and forced people to flee their homes.

"We have preliminary information that several people have died, around 10," said Sofia Gonzales Cortes, state representative for the central region of Valparaiso.

In the towns of Estrella and Navidad, southwest of the capital, the fires have burned nearly 30 homes, and forced evacuations near the surfing resort of Pichilemu.

France 24