VALPARAïSO, Chile: Sixteen people have died in a fire raging in Chile, whose President Michelle Bachelet has declared a disaster area as the conflagration threatens the port city of Valparaiso, authorities said Sunday.

A raging fire leaped from hilltop to hilltop in this colorful port city, killing at least 16 people and destroying more than 500 homes. More than 10,000 people were evacuated, including more than 200 female inmates at a prison.

The huge fire engulfed the outskirts of Chile’s port city of Valparaiso and was advancing unchecked toward its UNESCO-listed historic center, destroying hundreds of homes along the way and forcing the evacuation of more than 3,000 people.

Valparaiso is one of Chile’s most important ports. It lived its era of glory from the mid-19th century to the early 20th century as a stopover point for ships steaming down South America and to round its southern tip into the Atlantic Ocean.

The center of the city still features the many colored houses dating from that period, built by European immigrants. Its cobbled streets and funicular trams running up near-vertical rails supported its 2003 listing as a UNESCO-protected heritage site.

Fires occur frequently in central Chile, where summer sends temperatures soaring. In February 2013, some 105 homes were destroyed in Valparaiso, affecting 1,200 people, after a 27-year-old man started a blaze.

The military has taken over security in the city, located on the Pacific coast 110 km northwest of the capital Santiago and with a population of 270,000, after the government declared it a disaster zone.

“This is the worst catastrophe Valparaiso has ever seen,” the regional government administrator, Ricardo Bravo, told local reporters.