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Mulchén fire, February 2025 Mulchén

Out · last detection 9 Feb 2025, 06:23 UTC

The fire started on 7 February 2025 in Mulchén, Chile, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,079 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 32th largest in Región del Bío-Bío since 2016 (of 74 with a page). Number 12 in Chile in 2025, of 39.

Burnt area
2,079ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
3days
7 Feb 2025 – 9 Feb 2025
Municipalities hit
1
communes
Started on
7 Feb
2025
Heat detections
97
in a single hotspot: 62 MW
Danger at start
36
High · FWI index
Energy released
733MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

9 Feb 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Feb9 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

789

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
58km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone 22 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

46% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 914 ha in 2017, 251 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 948 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mulchén where it started
    2,078 ha reached on 7 Feb
    1.1 %

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)
7 Feb 32.4 °C 28 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
8 Feb 31.2 °C 23 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
9 Feb 33.8 °C 19 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
10 Feb after 26.2 °C 29 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
11 Feb after 24.5 °C 29 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
12 Feb after 26.0 °C 30 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
13 Feb after 27.5 °C 28 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
14 Feb after 25.5 °C 34 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
15 Feb after 25.4 °C 36 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
16 Feb after 25.2 °C 31 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
17 Feb after 26.3 °C 35 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
18 Feb after 31.1 °C 33 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
19 Feb after 27.1 °C 41 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 29

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 31 Jan 2025
After · 16 Feb 2025

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 2025 the air beside the fire reached 35 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 16: 1.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak35 µg/m³
Days over the guideline2 days
PM1036 µg/m³
Optical depth0.34
56789101112
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 · 97Every 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 Mulchén fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 7 February 2025 and 9 February 2025: 3 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 2,079 hectares (20.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mulchén (2,078 ha, 1.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.8 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 58 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, class Very 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.

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.