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Chalileo fire, 26 December 2025 Chalileo

Out · last detection 27 Dec 2025, 18:29 UTC

The fire started on 26 December 2025 in Chalileo, Argentina, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,251 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 52th largest in La Pampa since 2016 (of 190 with a page). Number 25 in Argentina in 2025, of 206.

Burnt area
5,251ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
2days
26 Dec 2025 – 27 Dec 2025
Municipalities hit
1
departments
Started on
26 Dec
2025
Heat detections
78
in a single hotspot: 238 MW
Danger at start
70
Very extreme · FWI index
Energy released
1.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

27 Dec 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 26 Dec27 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

2627

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

The weather it burned in

40°high
66km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

It had gone 11 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

10% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2 ha in 2018, 124 ha in 2022, 385 ha in 2024.

What happened to each town

  1. Chalileo where it started
    5,250 ha reached on 26 Dec
    0.6 %

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)
26 Dec 39.6 °C 10 % 66 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 70
27 Dec 32.4 °C 14 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
28 Dec after 36.5 °C 12 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
29 Dec after 39.3 °C 11 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
30 Dec after 38.0 °C 10 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
31 Dec after 39.9 °C 12 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
1 Jan after 40.3 °C 15 % 63 km/h 0.1 mm Very extreme 79
2 Jan after 34.5 °C 15 % 61 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
3 Jan after 30.9 °C 18 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
4 Jan after 33.1 °C 16 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
5 Jan after 37.4 °C 20 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
6 Jan after 33.8 °C 14 % 46 km/h 0.2 mm Extreme 59

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 19 Dec 2025
After · 3 Jan 2026

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 28 December 2025 the air beside the fire reached 68 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 30: 2.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak68 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1070 µg/m³
Optical depth0.50
24252627282930
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 · 78Every 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 Argentina ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Chalileo fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 26 December 2025 and 27 December 2025: 2 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 5,251 hectares (52.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Chalileo (5,250 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.6 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 66 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 70, class Very extreme.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Argentina (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: 911 · 100

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 911 · 100.

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 ADM2 (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.