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Ercilla fire, 5 February 2023 Ercilla, Collipulli

Out · last detection 22 Feb 2023, 05:46 UTC

The fire started on 5 February 2023 in Ercilla, Chile, and satellites saw it burning for 18 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,889 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 20th largest in Región de La Araucanía since 2016 (of 159 with a page). Number 31 in Chile in 2023, of 70.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Ercilla · 2022Collipulli · 2023Mulchén · 2023Traiguén · 2023

Burnt area
3,889ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
18days
5 Feb 2023 – 22 Feb 2023
Municipalities hit
2
communes
Started on
5 Feb
2023
Heat detections
193
in a single hotspot: 142 MW
Danger at start
27
High · FWI index
Average daily power
134MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Feb22 Feb
22 Feb 2023

How it evolved, day by day

5 Feb 2023 · 264 MW · 2 6 Feb 2023 · 6 MW · 3 8 Feb 2023 · 5 MW · 2 12 Feb 2023 · 21 MW · 5 13 Feb 2023 · 553 MW · 13 14 Feb 2023 · 114 MW · 5 15 Feb 2023 · 61 MW · 5 16 Feb 2023 · 170 MW · 24 17 Feb 2023 · 304 MW · 62 18 Feb 2023 · 144 MW · 31 19 Feb 2023 · 72 MW · 8 20 Feb 2023 · 140 MW · 20 21 Feb 2023 · 6 MW · 5 22 Feb 2023 · 13 MW · 8
5 Feb 8 Feb 13 Feb 15 Feb 17 Feb 19 Feb 21 Feb

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

The weather it burned in

29°high
62km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 12 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 25 Feb.

This area had burned before

16% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 160 ha in 2020, 454 ha in 2022.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 2.5% of the area of London (39 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. Ercilla where it started
    2,171 ha reached on 12 Feb
    4.4 %
  2. Collipulli
    1,727 ha reached on 5 Feb
    1.3 %

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)
6 Feb 28.1 °C 35 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
7 Feb 27.9 °C 28 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
8 Feb 27.9 °C 37 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
9 Feb 28.7 °C 31 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
10 Feb 26.5 °C 40 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
11 Feb 26.3 °C 32 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
12 Feb 22.8 °C 53 % 41 km/h 0.6 mm Moderate 17
13 Feb 21.9 °C 40 % 40 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 18
14 Feb 20.8 °C 49 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
15 Feb 22.1 °C 49 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
16 Feb 20.3 °C 36 % 62 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
17 Feb 25.8 °C 13 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
18 Feb 27.1 °C 19 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
19 Feb 25.3 °C 40 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
20 Feb 25.5 °C 31 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
21 Feb 26.5 °C 33 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
22 Feb 26.9 °C 31 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
23 Feb after 27.2 °C 34 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
24 Feb after 25.0 °C 35 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
25 Feb after 20.0 °C 37 % 40 km/h 1.0 mm Moderate 17

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Jan 2023
After · 1 Mar 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 12 February 2023 the air beside the fire reached 77 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 33: 2.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak77 µg/m³
Days over the guideline5 days
PM10110 µg/m³
Optical depth0.56
10111213141516171819202122232425
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 · 193Every 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 Ercilla fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 5 February 2023 to 22 February 2023 (18 days). The perimeter dates it from 12 February 2023 to 22 February 2023.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,889 hectares (38.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Ercilla (2,171 ha, 4.4 %); Collipulli (1,727 ha, 1.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 28.7 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 62 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 33, 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.

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 12 February 2023 to 22 February 2023. 193 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.

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.