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CL · Chile · –

Coihueco fire, February 2025 Coihueco, Pinto

Out · last detection 5 Mar 2025, 05:32 UTC

The fire started on 14 February 2025 in Coihueco, Chile, and satellites saw it burning for 20 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,261 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 13th largest in Región de Ñuble since 2016 (of 45 with a page). Number 4 in Chile in 2025, of 33.

Burnt area
3,261ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
20days
14 Feb 2025 – 5 Mar 2025
Municipalities hit
2
communes
Started on
14 Feb
2025
Heat detections
367
in a single hotspot: 211 MW
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index
Average daily power
396MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Feb5 Mar
5 Mar 2025

How it evolved, day by day

14 Feb 2025 · 541 MW · 7 15 Feb 2025 · 163 MW · 19 16 Feb 2025 · 128 MW · 26 17 Feb 2025 · 339 MW · 30 18 Feb 2025 · 240 MW · 29 19 Feb 2025 · 127 MW · 29 20 Feb 2025 · 100 MW · 21 21 Feb 2025 · 58 MW · 12 22 Feb 2025 · 88 MW · 20 23 Feb 2025 · 49 MW · 14 24 Feb 2025 · 42 MW · 9 25 Feb 2025 · 179 MW · 12 26 Feb 2025 · 1,297 MW · 29 27 Feb 2025 · 3,576 MW · 61 28 Feb 2025 · 121 MW · 38 1 Mar 2025 · 77 MW · 5 4 Mar 2025 · 11 MW · 4 5 Mar 2025 · 3 MW · 2
14 Feb 18 Feb 22 Feb 27 Feb 4 Mar

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

The weather it burned in

27°high
56km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone 29 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 20.8 mm on 7 Mar.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 2.1% of the area of London (33 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Coihueco where it started
    2,741 ha reached on 14 Feb
    1.5 %
  2. 529 ha reached on 26 Feb
    0.5 %

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

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025
Built-up area0.15 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.15 hectares of built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
14 Feb 18.9 °C 28 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
15 Feb 18.1 °C 33 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
16 Feb 19.5 °C 24 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
17 Feb 22.0 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
18 Feb 26.7 °C 19 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
19 Feb 18.6 °C 44 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
20 Feb 17.5 °C 47 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
21 Feb 22.3 °C 30 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
22 Feb 22.3 °C 26 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
23 Feb 23.1 °C 28 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
24 Feb 22.0 °C 32 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
25 Feb 21.8 °C 20 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
26 Feb 24.2 °C 21 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
27 Feb 21.6 °C 28 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
28 Feb 15.8 °C 59 % 56 km/h 1.8 mm Low 8
1 Mar 19.1 °C 44 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
2 Mar 17.0 °C 46 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
3 Mar 17.2 °C 38 % 44 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 20
4 Mar 19.4 °C 30 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
5 Mar 21.2 °C 33 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
6 Mar after 17.3 °C 50 % 60 km/h 0.2 mm High 25
7 Mar after 10.8 °C 77 % 59 km/h 20.8 mm Very low 0

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 31.8, a minimum humidity of 28% and 29 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 32.

FWI at the start 31.8
Minimum humidity 28 %
Days without rain 29
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Longaví fire, February 2023
9,450 ha 22 days FWI 32.0 Min. humidity 28 % 70 km away, in 2023

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.

What happened to them

4 days
median duration
2,282 ha
median area
100 %
went past 1,000 ha
6.0 mm
rain at the end (median; 15 of 32 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (3,261 ha against a median of 2,282 ha) and lasted 20 days, against 4 days.

In 17 of 32, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 6.0 mm.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

20.8 mmfirst rain
7 Mar2 days after it ended
56km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 5 Mar, and on 7 Mar 20.8 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 15 of 32, with a median of 6.0 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Feb 2025
After · 12 Mar 2025

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 1 March 2025 the air beside the fire reached 27 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak27 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1027 µg/m³
Optical depth0.16
12 Feb17 Feb22 Feb27 Feb4 Mar
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 · 367Every 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 Coihueco fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 14 February 2025 to 5 March 2025 (20 days). The perimeter dates it from 16 February 2025 to 5 March 2025.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,261 hectares (32.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Coihueco (2,741 ha, 1.5 %); Pinto (529 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 26.7 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 56 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, 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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 32. Their median duration was 4 days and their median area 2,282 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. In 17 of 32, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 6.0 mm.

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 · Emergency number and official warnings

Satellite cross-check

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 16 February 2025 to 5 March 2025. 367 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology

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.