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Pumanque fire, February 2024 Pumanque, Lolol

Out · last detection 4 Feb 2024, 19:40 UTC

The fire started on 3 February 2024 in Pumanque, Chile, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,191 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 9th largest in Región del Libertador Bernardo O'Higgins since 2016 (of 28 with a page). Number 3 in Chile in 2024, of 19.

Burnt area
3,191ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
2days
3 Feb 2024 – 4 Feb 2024
Municipalities hit
2
communes
Started on
3 Feb
2024
Heat detections
140
in a single hotspot: 200 MW
Danger at start
39
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
3.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

4 Feb 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Feb4 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

34

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
48km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months 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.

What happened to each town

  1. Pumanque where it started
    2,712 ha reached on 3 Feb
    6.1 %
  2. Lolol
    488 ha reached on 4 Feb
    0.8 %

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)
2 Feb 34.1 °C 21 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
3 Feb 31.7 °C 28 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
4 Feb 25.6 °C 42 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
5 Feb after 29.4 °C 36 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
6 Feb after 29.7 °C 33 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
7 Feb after 32.4 °C 39 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
8 Feb after 28.5 °C 28 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
9 Feb after 26.1 °C 32 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
10 Feb after 28.5 °C 34 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
11 Feb after 25.2 °C 45 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
12 Feb after 30.7 °C 25 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
13 Feb after 27.7 °C 39 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
14 Feb after 25.5 °C 45 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 24

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 27 Jan 2024
After · 11 Feb 2024

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 2024 the air beside the fire reached 56 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 31: 2.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak56 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1080 µg/m³
Optical depth0.72
1234567
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 · 140Every 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 Pumanque fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 February 2024 and 4 February 2024: 2 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 3,191 hectares (31.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Pumanque (2,712 ha, 6.1 %); Lolol (488 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.1 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, 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.