Pedro Aroca, a resident of Santa Juana, shows the clay oven in which he hid with his dog and chick to save himself from the flames, a week after a wave of fires began ravaging south-central Chile. "I assumed a warlike attitude, grabbed the hose of the water pump and started spraying water here and there," says Pedro, who eventually, unable to control the flames, hid in the oven for more than an hour until his family rescued him. IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES