How long did the Pichidegua fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 14 November 2016 to 19 November 2016 (6 days). The perimeter dates it from 17 November 2016 to 19 November 2016.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,056 hectares (20.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Pichidegua (2,061 ha, 6.4 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 33.3 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 30, 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 · 2016-11-14 → 2016-11-19

Pichidegua fire, November 2016 Pichidegua

Out · last detection 19 Nov 2016, 19:09 UTC

The fire started on 14 November 2016 in Pichidegua, Chile, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,056 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 17th largest in Región del Libertador Bernardo O'Higgins since 2016 (of 28 with a page). Number 10 in Chile in 2016, of 28.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Santa Cruz · 2017 La Estrella · 2024 Marchigüe · 2017 Litueche · 2016

Burnt area: 2,056ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 6days; 14 Nov 2016 – 19 Nov 2016
Municipalities hit: 1; communes
Started on: 14 Nov; 2016
Heat detections: 67; in a single hotspot: 110 MW
Danger at start: 30; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 691MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Nov19 Nov

Play back 19 Nov 2016

How it evolved, day by day

17 Nov 18 Nov 19 Nov

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

The weather it burned in

33°high

45km/h · peak gust

13%lowest humidity

It had gone 15 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 1.3% of the area of London (21 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

Pichidegua where it started

2,061 ha reached on 17 Nov

6.4 %

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.

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)
17 Nov	33.3 °C	13 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
18 Nov	27.5 °C	31 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
19 Nov	26.0 °C	42 %	35 km/h	0.3 mm	Moderate 19
20 Nov after	23.8 °C	39 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
21 Nov after	26.4 °C	39 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
22 Nov after	25.1 °C	40 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
23 Nov after	23.1 °C	49 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 14
24 Nov after	28.1 °C	35 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
25 Nov after	22.4 °C	50 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
26 Nov after	25.6 °C	35 %	40 km/h	0.1 mm	Moderate 20
27 Nov after	24.7 °C	35 %	40 km/h	0.4 mm	Moderate 20
28 Nov after	32.0 °C	20 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
29 Nov after	33.6 °C	25 %	38 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 · 7 Nov 2016

After · 26 Nov 2016

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.

Detections table · 67Every 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 Pichidegua fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 14 November 2016 to 19 November 2016 (6 days). The perimeter dates it from 17 November 2016 to 19 November 2016.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,056 hectares (20.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Pichidegua (2,061 ha, 6.4 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 33.3 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 30, 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 ›

CONAF · Corporación Nacional Forestal ↗
SENAPRED ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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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?

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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.

How we know this

Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 17 November 2016 to 19 November 2016. 67 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.

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.

Where it burned