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Molina fire, February 2020 Molina, Curicó, Río Claro

Out · last detection 21 Mar 2020, 06:08 UTC

The fire started on 8 February 2020 in Molina, Chile, and satellites saw it burning for 43 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 22,679 hectares from heat detections, spread across 4 municipalities.

It is the 4th largest in Región del Maule since 2016 (of 52 with a page). The largest in Chile in 2020, of 37.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Río Claro · 2022Molina · 2022Pelarco · 2016Molina · 2023

Burnt area
22,679ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
43days
8 Feb 2020 – 21 Mar 2020
Municipalities hit
4
communes
Started on
8 Feb
2020
Heat detections
2,574
in a single hotspot: 440 MW
Danger at start
28
High · FWI index
Average daily power
1.0GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Feb21 Mar
21 Mar 2020

How it evolved, day by day

8 Feb 2020 · 1 MW · 1 10 Feb 2020 · 4,521 MW · 97 11 Feb 2020 · 1,656 MW · 196 12 Feb 2020 · 930 MW · 93 13 Feb 2020 · 498 MW · 70 14 Feb 2020 · 3,177 MW · 140 15 Feb 2020 · 1,931 MW · 157 16 Feb 2020 · 4,008 MW · 200 17 Feb 2020 · 294 MW · 99 18 Feb 2020 · 441 MW · 72 19 Feb 2020 · 759 MW · 72 20 Feb 2020 · 1,870 MW · 99 21 Feb 2020 · 1,043 MW · 97 22 Feb 2020 · 200 MW · 42 23 Feb 2020 · 195 MW · 29 24 Feb 2020 · 45 MW · 25 25 Feb 2020 · 972 MW · 34 26 Feb 2020 · 803 MW · 71 27 Feb 2020 · 9,346 MW · 224 28 Feb 2020 · 1,427 MW · 181 29 Feb 2020 · 1,449 MW · 127 1 Mar 2020 · 395 MW · 80 2 Mar 2020 · 196 MW · 33 3 Mar 2020 · 455 MW · 28 4 Mar 2020 · 78 MW · 19 5 Mar 2020 · 518 MW · 25 6 Mar 2020 · 79 MW · 24 7 Mar 2020 · 1,533 MW · 46 8 Mar 2020 · 179 MW · 30 9 Mar 2020 · 174 MW · 15 10 Mar 2020 · 664 MW · 70 11 Mar 2020 · 157 MW · 45 12 Mar 2020 · 47 MW · 3 13 Mar 2020 · 2 MW · 2 15 Mar 2020 · 315 MW · 8 16 Mar 2020 · 31 MW · 9 19 Mar 2020 · 123 MW · 7 20 Mar 2020 · 11 MW · 2 21 Mar 2020 · 2 MW · 2
8 Feb 15 Feb 21 Feb 27 Feb 4 Mar 10 Mar 19 Mar

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

The weather it burned in

28°high
44km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 9 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 149 ha in 2018.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 14% of the area of London (227 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. Molina where it started
    19,797 ha reached on 8 Feb
    13 %
  2. Curicó
    2,368 ha reached on 21 Feb
    1.8 %
  3. Río Claro
    466 ha reached on 16 Feb
    1.1 %
  4. San Clemente
    103 ha
    0.0 %

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.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2020
Built-up area2.8 ha
Residents≈ 150

Inside the perimeter there were about 2.8 hectares of built-up land and about 150 residents (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
8 Feb 27.7 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
9 Feb 27.2 °C 30 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
10 Feb 25.8 °C 44 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
11 Feb 25.6 °C 48 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
12 Feb 22.9 °C 50 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
13 Feb 21.4 °C 38 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
14 Feb 25.9 °C 28 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
15 Feb 26.3 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
16 Feb 24.5 °C 37 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
17 Feb 20.4 °C 41 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
18 Feb 27.6 °C 27 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
19 Feb 26.9 °C 28 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
20 Feb 26.9 °C 29 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
21 Feb 23.0 °C 38 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
22 Feb 22.5 °C 52 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
23 Feb 21.6 °C 55 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
24 Feb 16.8 °C 65 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
25 Feb 23.4 °C 40 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
26 Feb 25.9 °C 30 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
27 Feb 24.9 °C 38 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
28 Feb 25.6 °C 40 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
29 Feb 26.8 °C 37 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
1 Mar 23.0 °C 58 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
2 Mar 24.3 °C 53 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
3 Mar 26.0 °C 52 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
4 Mar 25.7 °C 49 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
5 Mar 26.8 °C 42 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
6 Mar 25.4 °C 44 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
7 Mar 25.2 °C 45 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
8 Mar 24.9 °C 49 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
9 Mar 27.3 °C 32 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
10 Mar 25.7 °C 32 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
11 Mar 24.9 °C 29 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
12 Mar 22.6 °C 44 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
13 Mar 21.6 °C 53 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
14 Mar 23.5 °C 46 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
15 Mar 24.4 °C 36 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
16 Mar 21.2 °C 39 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
17 Mar 20.8 °C 51 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 21
18 Mar 21.9 °C 47 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
19 Mar 22.6 °C 41 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
20 Mar 21.3 °C 46 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
21 Mar 16.7 °C 59 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
22 Mar after 20.3 °C 56 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
23 Mar after 22.4 °C 40 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
24 Mar after 21.2 °C 38 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
25 Mar after 22.1 °C 46 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
26 Mar after 22.2 °C 43 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
27 Mar after 16.7 °C 60 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
28 Mar after 18.4 °C 65 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
29 Mar after 20.6 °C 55 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
30 Mar after 22.9 °C 43 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
31 Mar after 22.8 °C 44 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Feb 2020
After · 28 Mar 2020

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Detections table · 2,574Every 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 Molina fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 8 February 2020 to 21 March 2020 (43 days). The perimeter dates it from 8 February 2020 to 16 March 2020.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 22,679 hectares (226.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 4 municipalities: Molina (19,797 ha, 13 %); Curicó (2,368 ha, 1.8 %); Río Claro (466 ha, 1.1 %); San Clemente (103 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 27.7 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 29, 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 · 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.

RSS Changes to this page

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; 3 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 8 February 2020 to 16 March 2020. 2,574 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.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

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.