Collipulli fire, 1 February 2023 Ercilla, Collipulli
The fire started on 1 February 2023 in Collipulli, Chile, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,542 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 4th largest in Región de La Araucanía since 2016 (of 159 with a page). Number 10 in Chile in 2023, of 70.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 10,542ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 10days
- 1 Feb 2023 – 10 Feb 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- communes
- Started on
- 1 Feb
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 588
- in a single hotspot: 343 MW
- Danger at start
- 19
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 796MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
35% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 157 ha in 2016, 323 ha in 2017, 494 ha in 2018, 459 ha in 2019, 1,415 ha in 2020, 351 ha in 2021, 950 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,679 ha that had burned before.
- 600 ha Ercilla fire, February 2020 1,031 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 330 ha Ercilla fire, February 2022 2,581 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 147 ha Ercilla fire, February 2022 1,358 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 33 ha Ercilla fire, February 2022 1,756 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
5,614 ha reached on 31 Jan11 %
-
Collipulli where it started4,948 ha reached on 29 Jan3.8 %
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.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Feb | 26.6 °C | 40 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 2 Feb | 28.8 °C | 34 % | 67 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 3 Feb | 39.7 °C | 16 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 4 Feb | 34.6 °C | 29 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 5 Feb | 28.5 °C | 40 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 6 Feb | 29.4 °C | 36 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 7 Feb | 29.2 °C | 28 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 8 Feb | 29.1 °C | 37 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 9 Feb | 29.9 °C | 31 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 10 Feb | 27.8 °C | 40 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 11 Feb after | 27.6 °C | 32 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 12 Feb after | 24.0 °C | 53 % | 41 km/h | 0.6 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 13 Feb after | 23.2 °C | 40 % | 40 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 14 Feb after | 22.1 °C | 49 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 15 Feb after | 23.3 °C | 49 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 16 Feb after | 21.6 °C | 36 % | 62 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 17 Feb after | 27.1 °C | 14 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 18 Feb after | 28.4 °C | 19 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 19 Feb after | 26.6 °C | 41 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 20 Feb after | 26.8 °C | 32 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 5 February 2023 the air beside the fire reached 784 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 441: 29 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 588Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 8,056 haTraiguén4 February 2023 · 14 days · 15 km away
- 5,946 haErcilla3 February 2023 · 10 days · 19 km away
- 11,526 haMulchén3 February 2023 · 10 days · 20 km away
- 13,252 haLos SaucesDecember 2021 · 7 days · 25 km away
- 8,462 haMulchén3 February 2023 · 13 days · 33 km away
- 19,213 haMulchén3 February 2023 · 11 days · 37 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Collipulli fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 February 2023 and 10 February 2023: 10 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 10,542 hectares (105.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Ercilla (5,614 ha, 11 %); Collipulli (4,948 ha, 3.8 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 39.7 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 67 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, class Very 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 · 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.
No changes 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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 588 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.
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.