For many observers, these devastating fires are a reminder of the advancing perils of climate change. But in Chile, they also threaten to seal the troubled legacy of President Michelle Bachelet.

In polls released last week, 76 percent of respondents did not approve of Bachelet’s handling of the wildfire crisis, nor her Cabinet’s. The polling followed criticisms from top opposition politicians, as well as technical experts, that despite record temperatures, Bachelet and her government failed both to prepare for the latest rash of fires and to adequately respond once they had begun. 

After three firefighters died on duty in mid-January, a union chief from the scorched Valparaiso region condemned the national forestry agency that employed them, claiming that he had warned for years of insufficient firefighting resources. Former President Sebastian Pinera, who held office between Bachelet’s two terms and is favored in elections later this year, has also capitalized on the situation. Under Chile’s constitution, presidents may serve two terms, but not consecutively. Last month, tapping into an ongoing controversy over delays in the deployment of firefighting aircraft, he noted on Twitter that as president, he used Brazilian air force planes to fight wildfires. Days later, Pinera accused Bachelet of politicizing the firefighting effort by sidelining mayors from the opposition party in her planning meetings. 

Another opposition leader, Manuel Jose Ossandon, said Bachelet had failed to adequately deploy military resources to aid in fighting the fires. He later suggested that the national intelligence service, known as the ANI, should be bolstered to prevent a repeat of such a crisis. “I’d tell the president to lose her fear of the armed forces, because the dictatorship ended 40 years ago,” he said, referring to the rule of dictator Augusto Pinochet.

The backlash against Bachelet was startling, since she first claimed the presidency largely on the basis of her disaster response credentials. In 2002, she was the first woman to be appointed defense minister in Latin America. Later that year, when punishing rains flooded the Santiago area, she famously rode in a military vehicle to marshal the response. Draped in olive military garb and commanding troops in a disaster relief operation, Bachelet represented, for many Chileans, reconciliation after decades of military rule. Less than 30 years prior, Bachelet’s father had died of a heart attack after being tortured by troops under Pinochet’s command. 

That this wildfire disaster has depressed Bachelet’s poll numbers would be more ironic if her presidency was not already so vulnerable. For more than two years, Bachelet has been deflecting claims that she knew anything about alleged fraud and tax evasion committed by her son and his wife. Bachelet has not been charged with any wrongdoing, but her popularity has suffered. Ossandon, her fierce critic in Chile’s Senate, suggested the scandal had distracted Bachelet from managing the fires. 

Her troubles may soon get worse. In January, a Brazilian advertising mogul, Duda Mendonca, told prosecutors in Brazil that the construction firm OAS, which is implicated in the huge corruption scandal at Brazil’s state oil company, Petrobras, had helped finance Bachelet’s successful 2013 presidential campaign, as well as that of a left-wing competitor. Bachelet quickly denied the claims. But last week, Chilean detectives raided the firm’s Santiago offices. The prosecutor later clarified that while her office was not formally investigating Bachelet’s campaign, it would continue to pursue its own leads.

Suspicions of graft and favoritism have entered the story of the wildfires, in the form of an arcane debate over aerial firefighting. Chile’s national forestry service, known as CONAF, hired three Spanish firms to do the job with small planes and helicopters, even though the firms were under investigation in Spain for corruption. When the companies flew over their contracted hours, they kept operating at overtime rates. On Jan. 23, representatives of two of the firms defended the practice, telling the Chilean newspaper Las Ultimas Noticias that their competitors—large tanker jets—were ineffective in Chile’s landscape of canyons and valleys. After those jets, an American 747 and a Russian IL-76, were later deployed effectively, critics questioned whether the Spanish companies had been given undue privilege. 

Speculation of arson also added to the tensions. Rumors spread that members of Chile’s Mapuche community, who periodically engage in sabotage against the government, had been arrested for arson in the province of Colchagua. Chile’s attorney general’s office denied the rumors, but others sprang up online. The accusations of Mapuche involvement could have policy consequences. Ossandon, who is also running for the presidency—though polling currently with just 1 percent of support—has implied that Mapuche “terrorists” set the wildfires, a claim made to justify his demand for a stronger domestic role for the military and national intelligence agency. 

For all the talk of arson circulating in Chile, human agency may be less to blame in this crisis than the demands of the marketplace. After mining, forestry is Chile’s top export sector, but the conversion of robust native forests into solely pine and eucalyptus plantations has its hazards: The plantations absorb far less water, making them prone to wildfires. “A common denominator in the current system is the ease with which fire spreads across territories dominated by pine and eucalyptus,” Claudio Sota-Azat, a conservation medicine professor, wrote in an op-ed for the La Tercera newspaper.

Authorities have arrested at least 44 people for either arson or negligence, and a figure from Bachelet’s government may be the next one held responsible. Critics like Ossandon have called for the director of CONAF, Aaron Cavieres Cancino, to resign. He has submitted his organization’s contracts to prosecutors, who are seeking evidence of illegality in its dealings with the three Spanish firefighting firms, which have been nicknamed “the cartel of fire” in the Chilean media.

Disasters, of course, are part of the fabric of Chilean life. The country is nestled among three clashing tectonic plates, stretched along a vast coastline and blanketed by snow, desert and dry forests. Vulnerable to earthquakes, tsunamis, flooding, avalanches and wildfires, Chile—as one disaster specialist wrote in a document prepared for the U.S. government’s Federal Emergency Management Agency—is “one of the most hazardous habitats on earth.” 

When Bachelet finished her first term, in 2010, she told her successor, Pinera, that he would likely spend his time in office cleaning up after the earthquake that devastated the country that year. Last month, Pinera was neck-and-neck with the candidate from Bachelet’s coalition; in the most recent poll, he had edged out a five-point lead. He may spend his second term cleaning up after this year’s fires. 

Christopher Looft is a researcher and writer based in New York. He holds a Master's degree in journalism and Latin American studies from New York University.