World News for Students of English

20-02-2015 07:00

Around 100 homes have been evacuated after devastating forest fires swept through two regions in Chile.

Valparaiso and Provincia de Arauco regions are under red alert, as more than 2,000 hectares of land have been burnt since the fires began on Saturday.

Helicopters and rescue services from the National Forest Corporation have been working with the army and private companies to control the huge blaze which is making its way towards the main roads and affecting traffic on a nearby highway.

The fire services commander said that without their contingency plan they wouldn’t have been able to prevent the houses from burning down.

This local resident said she was worried about her house going up in flames as many of them are made entirely out of wood.

It’s not yet known how the fires began, but it’s been reported that they may have been started by a domestic barbecue.

Difficult words: devastating (highly destructive), sweep (to move, hit), huge (very big), blaze (a fire), contingency plan (a plan which deals with possible future events or disasters), prevent (to stop something from happening), go up in flames (to burn), entirely (completely), domestic barbecue (when people meet and cook outside near their homes).

Source: www.ondemandnews.com