How long did the Lumaco fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 29 January 2023 and 11 February 2023: 14 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 16,772 hectares (167.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 3 municipalities: Lumaco (16,512 ha, 15 %); Galvarino (304 ha, 0.5 %); Cholchol (5 ha, 0.0 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 34.1 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 56 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 32, 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.

CL · Chile · 2023-01-29 → 2023-02-11

Lumaco fire, January 2023 Lumaco, Galvarino, Cholchol

Out · last detection 11 Feb 2023, 05:52 UTC

The fire started on 29 January 2023 in Lumaco, Chile, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 16,772 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the largest fire in Región de La Araucanía since 2016 (of 159 with a page). Number 6 in Chile in 2023, of 70.

Burnt area: 16,772ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 14days; 29 Jan 2023 – 11 Feb 2023
Municipalities hit: 3; communes
Started on: 29 Jan; 2023
Heat detections: 1,111; in a single hotspot: 275 MW
Danger at start: 15; Moderate · FWI index
Energy released: 21.6GW; sum of detected power

Play back 11 Feb 2023

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Jan11 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

2930312345678911

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

The weather it burned in

34°high

56km/h · peak gust

24%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

19% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 575 ha in 2019, 559 ha in 2020, 2,097 ha in 2021.

1,335 ha Lumaco fire, December 2021 3,410 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Lumaco where it started

16,512 ha reached on 29 Jan

15 %
Galvarino

304 ha reached on 29 Jan

0.5 %
Cholchol

5 ha

0.0 %

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)
29 Jan	22.3 °C	52 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 15
30 Jan	22.3 °C	54 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 15
31 Jan	20.6 °C	48 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 13
1 Feb	21.0 °C	42 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 14
2 Feb	24.2 °C	36 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
3 Feb	34.1 °C	24 %	56 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
4 Feb	34.1 °C	24 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
5 Feb	24.0 °C	47 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
6 Feb	24.6 °C	37 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
7 Feb	24.4 °C	28 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
8 Feb	24.3 °C	44 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
9 Feb	25.4 °C	41 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
10 Feb	22.1 °C	41 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
11 Feb	23.1 °C	38 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
12 Feb after	19.1 °C	60 %	46 km/h	0.7 mm	Moderate 13
13 Feb after	18.6 °C	45 %	44 km/h	0.5 mm	Moderate 15
14 Feb after	18.6 °C	53 %	33 km/h	0.1 mm	Moderate 13
15 Feb after	19.0 °C	54 %	51 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
16 Feb after	18.1 °C	35 %	58 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
17 Feb after	23.3 °C	13 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
18 Feb after	23.9 °C	25 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
19 Feb after	21.7 °C	46 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
20 Feb after	21.5 °C	33 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
21 Feb after	22.2 °C	34 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 22 Jan 2023

After · 18 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 4 February 2023 the air beside the fire reached 264 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 104: 6.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak264 µg/m³

Days over the guideline6 days

PM10378 µg/m³

Optical depth2.05

WHO 15

27282930311234567891011121314

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 · 1,111Every 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 Lumaco fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 29 January 2023 and 11 February 2023: 14 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 16,772 hectares (167.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 3 municipalities: Lumaco (16,512 ha, 15 %); Galvarino (304 ha, 0.5 %); Cholchol (5 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 34.1 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 56 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 32, 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

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

What do you think is wrong?

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

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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