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Tomé fire, January 2023 Tomé, Florida, Penco

Out · last detection 19 Feb 2023, 06:42 UTC

The fire started on 30 January 2023 in Tomé, Chile, and satellites saw it burning for 21 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 39,139 hectares from heat detections, spread across 5 municipalities.

It is the 3th largest in Región del Bío-Bío since 2016 (of 74 with a page). Number 2 in Chile in 2023, of 70.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Florida · 2017Penco · 2022Concepción · 2026Coelemu · 2023

Burnt area
39,139ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
21days
30 Jan 2023 – 19 Feb 2023
Municipalities hit
5
communes
Started on
30 Jan
2023
Heat detections
2,911
in a single hotspot: 605 MW
Danger at start
37
High · FWI index
Average daily power
4.0GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Jan19 Feb
19 Feb 2023

How it evolved, day by day

30 Jan 2023 · 3 MW · 1 2 Feb 2023 · 7,860 MW · 48 3 Feb 2023 · 39,498 MW · 1242 4 Feb 2023 · 1,953 MW · 369 5 Feb 2023 · 4 MW · 4 6 Feb 2023 · 1,361 MW · 101 7 Feb 2023 · 3,989 MW · 171 8 Feb 2023 · 7,838 MW · 337 9 Feb 2023 · 2,986 MW · 165 10 Feb 2023 · 2,636 MW · 153 11 Feb 2023 · 4,698 MW · 167 12 Feb 2023 · 457 MW · 75 13 Feb 2023 · 176 MW · 11 14 Feb 2023 · 144 MW · 11 15 Feb 2023 · 14 MW · 3 16 Feb 2023 · 2 MW · 3 17 Feb 2023 · 1,410 MW · 12 18 Feb 2023 · 401 MW · 37 19 Feb 2023 · 1 MW · 1
30 Jan 3 Feb 4 Feb 7 Feb 10 Feb 13 Feb 16 Feb 19 Feb

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
57km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 38 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

24% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 8,601 ha in 2017, 100 ha in 2018, 44 ha in 2020, 403 ha in 2021, 343 ha in 2022.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 25% of the area of London (391 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

  1. Tomé where it started
    29,560 ha reached on 30 Jan
    60 %
  2. Florida
    6,049 ha reached on 2 Feb
    10.0 %
  3. Penco
    2,632 ha reached on 3 Feb
    24 %
  4. Coelemu
    1,293 ha reached on 7 Feb
    3.8 %
  5. Concepción
    345 ha reached on 2 Feb
    1.6 %

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.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025
Built-up area110 ha
Residents≈ 7,300

Inside the perimeter there were about 110 hectares of built-up land and about 7,300 residents (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
30 Jan 29.5 °C 35 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
31 Jan 26.0 °C 35 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
1 Feb 27.3 °C 32 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
2 Feb 31.5 °C 20 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
3 Feb 38.7 °C 17 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
4 Feb 23.9 °C 50 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
5 Feb 25.4 °C 49 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
6 Feb 29.5 °C 29 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
7 Feb 31.0 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
8 Feb 28.0 °C 33 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
9 Feb 30.2 °C 29 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
10 Feb 28.4 °C 36 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
11 Feb 28.2 °C 27 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
12 Feb 22.2 °C 49 % 44 km/h 0.1 mm High 30
13 Feb 24.6 °C 32 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
14 Feb 24.8 °C 38 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
15 Feb 26.3 °C 38 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
16 Feb 24.1 °C 24 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
17 Feb 27.4 °C 13 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
18 Feb 27.5 °C 18 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
19 Feb 27.9 °C 30 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
20 Feb after 27.4 °C 24 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
21 Feb after 28.2 °C 23 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
22 Feb after 29.1 °C 29 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
23 Feb after 28.4 °C 35 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
24 Feb after 26.5 °C 33 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
25 Feb after 23.7 °C 34 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
26 Feb after 26.9 °C 23 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
27 Feb after 28.3 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
28 Feb after 28.3 °C 29 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
1 Mar after 27.0 °C 33 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 23 Jan 2023
After · 26 Feb 2023

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 3 February 2023 the air beside the fire reached 1,777 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 506: 34 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak1,777 µg/m³
Days over the guideline16 days
PM102,541 µg/m³
Optical depth6.27
3112345678910111213141516171819202122
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 · 2,911Every 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 Tomé fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 30 January 2023 to 19 February 2023 (21 days). The perimeter dates it from 2 February 2023 to 19 February 2023.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 39,139 hectares (391.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 5 municipalities: Tomé (29,560 ha, 60 %); Florida (6,049 ha, 10.0 %); Penco (2,632 ha, 24 %); Coelemu (1,293 ha, 3.8 %); Concepción (345 ha, 1.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.7 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 57 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 60, class Extreme.
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.

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.

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 2 February 2023 to 19 February 2023. 2,911 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.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

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.