How long did the Longaví fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 11 January 2023 and 31 January 2023: 21 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 1,336 hectares (13.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Longaví (1,341 ha, 0.9 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 25.1 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 20, 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.

CL · Chile · 2023-01-11 → 2023-01-31

Longaví fire, January 2023 Longaví

Out · last detection 31 Jan 2023, 18:19 UTC

The fire started on 11 January 2023 in Longaví, Chile, and satellites saw it burning for 21 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,336 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 35th largest in Región del Maule since 2016 (of 52 with a page). Number 60 in Chile in 2023, of 70.

Burnt area: 1,336ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 21days; 11 Jan 2023 – 31 Jan 2023
Municipalities hit: 1; communes
Started on: 11 Jan; 2023
Heat detections: 212; in a single hotspot: 289 MW
Danger at start: 8; Low · FWI index
Energy released: 1.2GW; sum of detected power

Play back 31 Jan 2023

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Jan31 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

1112131415161819202122232425262728293031

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

The weather it burned in

25°high

52km/h · peak gust

26%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

2% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 24 ha in 2019.

What happened to each town

Longaví where it started

1,341 ha reached on 11 Jan

0.9 %

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)
11 Jan	19.6 °C	32 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 8
12 Jan	18.8 °C	30 %	45 km/h	0.1 mm	Moderate 13
13 Jan	21.1 °C	30 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 15
14 Jan	19.5 °C	41 %	48 km/h	0.3 mm	Moderate 15
15 Jan	21.2 °C	37 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 15
16 Jan	20.6 °C	42 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 15
17 Jan	20.0 °C	43 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 15
18 Jan	24.9 °C	34 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 16
19 Jan	20.6 °C	53 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 14
20 Jan	19.3 °C	41 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 13
21 Jan	21.7 °C	26 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 17
22 Jan	24.3 °C	30 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
23 Jan	23.2 °C	29 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
24 Jan	18.9 °C	49 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 15
25 Jan	20.1 °C	38 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 16
26 Jan	19.5 °C	39 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 16
27 Jan	21.8 °C	31 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 17
28 Jan	25.1 °C	30 %	37 km/h	0.1 mm	Moderate 19
29 Jan	24.9 °C	38 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
30 Jan	24.4 °C	35 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
31 Jan	22.8 °C	36 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
1 Feb after	22.9 °C	35 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
2 Feb after	27.6 °C	28 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
3 Feb after	30.6 °C	27 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
4 Feb after	24.7 °C	35 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
5 Feb after	21.3 °C	58 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 15
6 Feb after	24.1 °C	43 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 16
7 Feb after	24.6 °C	38 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
8 Feb after	23.9 °C	29 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
9 Feb after	26.4 °C	25 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
10 Feb after	25.5 °C	22 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 4 Jan 2023

After · 7 Feb 2023

Before After

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 24 January 2023 the air beside the fire reached 19 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak19 µg/m³

Days over the guideline0 days

PM1027 µg/m³

Optical depth0.27

WHO 15

910111213141516171819202122232425262728293031123

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 · 212Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Chile ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Longaví fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 11 January 2023 and 31 January 2023: 21 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 1,336 hectares (13.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Longaví (1,341 ha, 0.9 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 25.1 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 20, 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

CONAF · Corporación Nacional Forestal ↗
SENAPRED ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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

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Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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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.

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.

Where it burned