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Angol fire, December 2022 Angol, Los Sauces

Out · last detection 31 Dec 2022, 17:59 UTC

The fire started on 29 December 2022 in Angol, Chile, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,658 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 64th largest in Región de La Araucanía since 2016 (of 159 with a page). Number 29 in Chile in 2022, of 51.

Burnt area
1,658ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
3days
29 Dec 2022 – 31 Dec 2022
Municipalities hit
2
communes
Started on
29 Dec
2022
Heat detections
64
in a single hotspot: 216 MW
Danger at start
21
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
1.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

31 Dec 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Dec31 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

293031

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

30°high
56km/h · peak gust
28%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

20% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 332 ha in 2020.

What happened to each town

  1. Angol where it started
    907 ha reached on 26 Dec
    0.8 %
  2. Los Sauces
    753 ha reached on 30 Dec
    0.9 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

The weather day by day

ECMWF ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, the standard reference for past weather, and the Canadian Fire Weather Index (the same system Copernicus uses), computed by WorldFires from that data. Days after the fire run until the first rain.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
29 Dec 28.3 °C 33 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
30 Dec 30.0 °C 28 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
31 Dec 27.3 °C 36 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
1 Jan after 22.2 °C 49 % 32 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 14
2 Jan after 21.6 °C 41 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
3 Jan after 24.2 °C 44 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
4 Jan after 29.6 °C 41 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
5 Jan after 28.4 °C 48 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
6 Jan after 29.8 °C 42 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
7 Jan after 29.5 °C 42 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
8 Jan after 31.5 °C 39 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
9 Jan after 26.4 °C 45 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
10 Jan after 22.6 °C 33 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

Before · 22 Dec 2022
After · 7 Jan 2023

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 31 December 2022 the air beside the fire reached 50 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 31: 2.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak50 µg/m³
Days over the guideline3 days
PM1071 µg/m³
Optical depth0.58
2728293031123
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 64Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
⬇ Download CSV Times in UTC. Each detection is a 375 m pixel: a large fire yields hundreds per pass.
Date and timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Chile ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Angol fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 29 December 2022 and 31 December 2022: 3 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 1,658 hectares (16.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Angol (907 ha, 0.8 %); Los Sauces (753 ha, 0.9 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.0 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 56 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 25, class High.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Chile (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

Where to verify it

A satellite detection is not an official report. Final figures and the fire’s status are published by each country’s emergency service.

Emergency number: 130 (CONAF) · 132

Satellite cross-check

Does something look wrong on this page?

This page is built from satellite data and official records, and it sometimes gets things wrong: the wrong dates, the wrong town, two fires merged into one, or something that was not a wildfire at all. If you know this fire first-hand (you live nearby, saw it, fought it or reported on it), tell us what really happened and we will check it.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy. This is not an emergency service: if there is a fire now, call 130 (CONAF) · 132.

Where this data comes from

The perimeter comes from the Copernicus Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS), which rebuilds it from MODIS and VIIRS heat detections and publishes it under CC BY 4.0. It is not measured on imagery as in Europe, so it is an estimate. Heat detections come from the VIIRS sensors aboard Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20, distributed by NASA FIRMS at 375 m resolution. Municipal boundaries come from geoBoundaries ADM3 (Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Intergovernmental Organisations (CC BY 3.0 IGO)). The area per municipality is computed by WorldFires by crossing the perimeter with those boundaries, so it may differ from each country’s official figure.