Temuco fire, January 2026 Temuco
The fire started on 19 January 2026 in Temuco, Chile, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,143 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 131th largest in Región de La Araucanía since 2016 (of 159 with a page). Number 44 in Chile in 2026, of 63.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 1,143ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 2days
- 19 Jan 2026 – 20 Jan 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- communes
- Started on
- 19 Jan
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 28
- in a single hotspot: 157 MW
- Danger at start
- 28
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 551MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 12.5 mm on 30 Jan.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Temuco where it started1,144 ha reached on 19 Jan2.5 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19 Jan | 32.2 °C | 24 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 20 Jan | 30.1 °C | 28 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 21 Jan after | 23.7 °C | 45 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 22 Jan after | 25.7 °C | 39 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 23 Jan after | 28.4 °C | 33 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 24 Jan after | 25.3 °C | 41 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 25 Jan after | 24.2 °C | 41 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 21 |
| 26 Jan after | 27.9 °C | 28 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 27 Jan after | 28.9 °C | 29 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 28 Jan after | 30.5 °C | 41 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 29 Jan after | 33.2 °C | 42 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 30 Jan after | 20.5 °C | 78 % | 29 km/h | 12.5 mm | Very low 0 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 22 January 2026 the air beside the fire reached 40 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 19: 1.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 28Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 5,942 haGalvarinoJanuary 2019 · 11 days · 10 km away
- 10,183 haGalvarino7 February 2022 · 15 days · 20 km away
- 7,726 haPerquenco25 March 2026 · 13 days · 25 km away
- 10,252 haGalvarino3 February 2023 · 7 days · 27 km away
- 5,452 haGalvarino6 February 2025 · 7 days · 28 km away
- 12,385 haTraiguénMarch 2025 · 7 days · 34 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Temuco fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 19 January 2026 and 20 January 2026: 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 1,143 hectares (11.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Temuco (1,144 ha, 2.5 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 32.2 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 28, 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.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 28 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.
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.