Freire fire, March 2025 Freire, Padre Las Casas, Cunco
The fire started on 21 March 2025 in Freire, Chile, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,730 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 23th largest in Región de La Araucanía since 2016 (of 159 with a page). Number 4 in Chile in 2025, of 39.
- Burnt area
- 3,730ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 4days
- 21 Mar 2025 – 24 Mar 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- communes
- Started on
- 21 Mar
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 136
- in a single hotspot: 109 MW
- Danger at start
- 6
- Low · FWI index
- Energy released
- 1.7GW
- sum of detected power
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 13 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.2 mm on 28 Mar.
This area had burned before
43% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 756 ha in 2017, 412 ha in 2019, 860 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,621 ha that had burned before.
- 723 ha Freire fire, March 2017 1,102 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 29 ha Cunco fire, March 2019 1,160 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 24 ha Padre Las Casas fire, March 2017 1,132 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 10 ha Freire fire, March 2017 1,235 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Freire where it started2,656 ha reached on 21 Mar3.0 %
-
630 ha reached on 21 Mar1.4 %
-
447 ha reached on 21 Mar0.2 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21 Mar | 20.9 °C | 59 % | 26 km/h | 0.3 mm | Low 6 |
| 22 Mar | 18.5 °C | 54 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 9 |
| 23 Mar | 21.4 °C | 27 % | 58 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 24 Mar | 27.4 °C | 29 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 25 Mar after | 28.0 °C | 35 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 26 Mar after | 21.8 °C | 48 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 27 Mar after | 20.0 °C | 53 % | 27 km/h | 0.1 mm | Low 10 |
| 28 Mar after | 20.6 °C | 57 % | 24 km/h | 1.2 mm | Very low 3 |
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 25 March 2025 the air beside the fire reached 57 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 35: 2.3 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 · 136Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Freire fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 21 March 2025 and 24 March 2025: 4 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 3,730 hectares (37.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Freire (2,656 ha, 3.0 %); Padre Las Casas (630 ha, 1.4 %); Cunco (447 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 28.0 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 58 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 18, class Moderate.
- 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
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.