Traiguén fire, 4 February 2023 Traiguén, Ercilla, Victoria
The fire started on 4 February 2023 in Traiguén, Chile, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,056 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 8th largest in Región de La Araucanía since 2016 (of 159 with a page). Number 15 in Chile in 2023, of 70.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 8,056ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 14days
- 4 Feb 2023 – 17 Feb 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- communes
- Started on
- 4 Feb
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 492
- in a single hotspot: 526 MW
- Danger at start
- 32
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 751MW
- 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 10 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
34% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 398 ha in 2018, 1,504 ha in 2019, 627 ha in 2020, 418 ha in 2021, 797 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,746 ha that had burned before.
- 1,504 ha Ercilla fire, January 2019 1,841 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 742 ha Traiguén fire, February 2022 1,151 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 398 ha Ercilla fire, January 2018 2,480 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 135 ha Ercilla fire, December 2021 1,021 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 98 ha Traiguén fire, January 2020 1,933 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 44 ha Ercilla fire, February 2022 1,756 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 29 ha Victoria fire, March 2020 2,332 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 18 ha Ercilla fire, March 2020 1,143 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
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
-
Traiguén where it started4,117 ha reached on 4 Feb4.6 %
-
3,318 ha reached on 6 Feb6.7 %
-
627 ha reached on 9 Feb0.5 %
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.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2025Inside the perimeter there were about 5.4 hectares of built-up land and about 250 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 Feb | 34.6 °C | 24 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 5 Feb | 28.1 °C | 38 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 6 Feb | 28.7 °C | 32 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 7 Feb | 28.5 °C | 25 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 8 Feb | 28.4 °C | 35 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 9 Feb | 29.4 °C | 30 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 10 Feb | 26.9 °C | 37 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 11 Feb | 26.9 °C | 31 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 12 Feb | 23.0 °C | 53 % | 40 km/h | 0.4 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 13 Feb | 22.6 °C | 39 % | 40 km/h | 0.2 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 14 Feb | 21.6 °C | 47 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 15 Feb | 23.0 °C | 46 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 16 Feb | 20.9 °C | 31 % | 61 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 17 Feb | 26.3 °C | 13 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 18 Feb after | 27.9 °C | 17 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 19 Feb after | 25.9 °C | 39 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 20 Feb after | 25.9 °C | 27 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 21 Feb after | 26.9 °C | 28 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 22 Feb after | 27.5 °C | 29 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 23 Feb after | 27.6 °C | 33 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 24 Feb after | 25.6 °C | 33 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 25 Feb after | 20.9 °C | 35 % | 40 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 30 |
| 26 Feb after | 23.4 °C | 30 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 27 Feb after | 27.0 °C | 28 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
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 5 February 2023 the air beside the fire reached 784 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 441: 29 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 · 492Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Traiguén fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 4 February 2023 and 17 February 2023: 14 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 8,056 hectares (80.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Traiguén (4,117 ha, 4.6 %); Ercilla (3,318 ha, 6.7 %); Victoria (627 ha, 0.5 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 34.6 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 61 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 · 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. 492 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.
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.