Skip to content
worldfires
CL · Chile · →

Requínoa fire, February 2020 Requínoa

Out · last detection 7 Mar 2020, 05:30 UTC

The fire started on 26 February 2020 in Requínoa, Chile, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,142 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 6th largest in Región del Libertador Bernardo O'Higgins since 2016 (of 28 with a page). Number 2 in Chile in 2020, of 37.

Burnt area
4,142ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
11days
26 Feb 2020 – 7 Mar 2020
Municipalities hit
1
communes
Started on
26 Feb
2020
Heat detections
324
in a single hotspot: 324 MW
Danger at start
28
High · FWI index
Energy released
10.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

7 Mar 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 26 Feb7 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

262728291234567

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

The weather it burned in

29°high
32km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

It had gone 48 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

0% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Requínoa where it started
    4,152 ha reached on 26 Feb
    6.1 %

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)
26 Feb 28.9 °C 20 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
27 Feb 26.6 °C 31 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
28 Feb 27.9 °C 29 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
29 Feb 27.6 °C 37 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
1 Mar 24.9 °C 48 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
2 Mar 26.0 °C 42 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
3 Mar 27.3 °C 41 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
4 Mar 27.7 °C 41 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
5 Mar 29.2 °C 32 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
6 Mar 26.7 °C 39 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
7 Mar 27.0 °C 36 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
8 Mar after 26.8 °C 38 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
9 Mar after 29.0 °C 27 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
10 Mar after 26.7 °C 34 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
11 Mar after 26.9 °C 26 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
12 Mar after 24.9 °C 38 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
13 Mar after 23.3 °C 46 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
14 Mar after 25.6 °C 42 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
15 Mar after 26.4 °C 32 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
16 Mar after 22.8 °C 40 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
17 Mar after 22.6 °C 41 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 23

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 19 Feb 2020
After · 14 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 · 324Every 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 Requínoa fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 26 February 2020 and 7 March 2020: 11 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 4,142 hectares (41.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Requínoa (4,152 ha, 6.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.2 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 32 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

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.