Burned area
satellite only4,755ha
Perimeter published by GWIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 15 Nov 2019 – 20 Nov 2019
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
CL · Chile · –
Valparaíso fire, 15 November 2019 Valparaíso, Casablanca
Out · last detection 20 Nov 2019, 05:56 UTC
The fire started on 15 November 2019 in Valparaíso, Chile, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,755 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 3th largest in Región de Valparaíso since 2016 (of 22 with a page). Number 3 in Chile in 2019, of 44.
Use this data
Compare with…
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-10-24matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only6days
15 Nov 2019 to 20 Nov 2019: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 20 Nov 2019, 05:56 UTC
+− cross-check
Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
Start
satellite only15 Nov 2019
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 15 Nov 2019
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only384
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 407 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
- Date
- 15 Nov 2019 – 20 Nov 2019
+− cross-check
There is no official record to compare with. Each hotspot is a pixel detected in one satellite pass, not a separate fire.
The worst day
satellite only8,925MW
Total radiative power on 16 November 2019; hotspots that day: 189.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 16 Nov 2019
+− cross-check
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Danger at the start
model20.3FWI · moderate
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 31.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 15 Nov 2019, local noon
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model22.2°C · 36% RH
High of 22.2 °C and minimum humidity of 36% on 20 November 2019; gusts of 52 km/h on 15 November 2019.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 15 Nov 2019 – 20 Nov 2019
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
Living inside
model≈ 1,100people
Estimated residents inside the perimeter and 16 ha of built-up area (100 m grid, epoch 2020).
- Source
- GHSL R2023A · JRC
- Date
- calculated on 24 October 2026
+− cross-check
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.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
-
· reconstructed GHSLPopulation and built-up area computed
What was saved on 24 October 2026
Every night a snapshot of what the page shows is saved. If anything changes, it appears in the list as a log entry.
- Area
- 4,755 ha
- Dates
- 15 Nov 2019 – 20 Nov 2019
- Name
- Valparaíso
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/valparaiso-2019-11-3?v=2026-10-24A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire valparaiso-2019-11-3.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019-11-15 | 4 | 527 | 21.4 | 11.3 | 45 | 27.2 | 51.8 | 0 | 20.3 | moderado | 1 |
| 2019-11-16 | 189 | 8,925 | 19.5 | 12.3 | 54 | 26.2 | 48.2 | 0 | 19.8 | moderado | 1 |
| 2019-11-17 | 106 | 2,077 | 17.8 | 9.1 | 48 | 25 | 46.4 | 0 | 19.5 | moderado | 1 |
| 2019-11-18 | 67 | 486 | 21.9 | 11.2 | 31 | 27.2 | 49.3 | 0 | 26.5 | alto | 1 |
| 2019-11-19 | 15 | 289 | 18.8 | 13.3 | 45 | 18.4 | 33.1 | 0 | 19.9 | moderado | 1 |
| 2019-11-20 | 3 | 8 | 22.2 | 10.8 | 36 | 23.2 | 43.9 | 0 | 23.5 | alto | 1 |
| 2019-11-21 | 0 | 0 | 16.8 | 11.7 | 67 | 14 | 31.3 | 0 | 12.6 | moderado | 0 |
| 2019-11-22 | 0 | 0 | 17.4 | 10.1 | 65 | 20.1 | 38.9 | 0 | 14.4 | moderado | 0 |
| 2019-11-23 | 0 | 0 | 16 | 10.8 | 66 | 14.3 | 31.3 | 0 | 11.7 | moderado | 0 |
| 2019-11-24 | 0 | 0 | 16.1 | 11.5 | 61 | 17.5 | 33.1 | 0 | 13 | moderado | 0 |
| 2019-11-25 | 0 | 0 | 16 | 11 | 51 | 30.6 | 53.6 | 0 | 20.4 | moderado | 0 |
| 2019-11-26 | 0 | 0 | 16.9 | 8.3 | 40 | 32.4 | 56.9 | 0 | 25.5 | alto | 0 |
| 2019-11-27 | 0 | 0 | 21 | 9.1 | 29 | 30.7 | 54 | 0 | 32 | alto | 0 |
| 2019-11-28 | 0 | 0 | 18.2 | 8.6 | 43 | 27 | 49 | 0 | 27.7 | alto | 0 |
| 2019-11-29 | 0 | 0 | 18.5 | 8.9 | 38 | 28.4 | 50 | 0 | 29.1 | alto | 0 |
| 2019-11-30 | 0 | 0 | 20.4 | 9.2 | 36 | 26 | 49.3 | 0 | 27.8 | alto | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: GWIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0), GHSL (JRC). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
- Burnt area
- 4,755ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 6days
- 15 Nov 2019 – 20 Nov 2019
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- communes
- Started on
- 15 Nov
- 2019
- Heat detections
- 384
- in a single hotspot: 407 MW
- Danger at start
- 20
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 2.1GW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
15 Nov20 Nov
20 Nov 2019
How it evolved, day by day
16 Nov
19 Nov
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
22°high
52km/h · peak gust
31%lowest humidity
It had gone 31 days 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.
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
-
Valparaíso where it started3,034 ha reached on 16 Nov9.8 %
-
1,734 ha reached on 15 Nov1.8 %
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 2020Built-up area16 ha
Residents≈ 1,100
Inside the perimeter there were about 16 hectares of built-up land and about 1,100 residents (GHSL 2020, 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.
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)
Started with Strong wind: 29 % of the area in Chile
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15 Nov | 21.4 °C | 45 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 16 Nov | 19.5 °C | 54 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 17 Nov | 17.8 °C | 48 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 18 Nov | 21.9 °C | 31 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 19 Nov | 18.8 °C | 45 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 20 Nov | 22.2 °C | 36 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 21 Nov after | 16.8 °C | 67 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 22 Nov after | 17.4 °C | 65 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 23 Nov after | 16.0 °C | 66 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 24 Nov after | 16.1 °C | 61 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 25 Nov after | 16.0 °C | 51 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 26 Nov after | 16.9 °C | 40 % | 57 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 27 Nov after | 21.0 °C | 29 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 28 Nov after | 18.2 °C | 43 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 29 Nov after | 18.5 °C | 38 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 30 Nov after | 20.4 °C | 36 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 20.3, a minimum humidity of 45% and 31 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 12.
FWI at the start
20.3
Minimum humidity
45 %
Days without rain
31
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Valparaíso fire, 15 November 2019
4,755 ha
6 days
FWI 20.3
Min. humidity 45 %
Santo Domingo fire, December 2022
1,225 ha
2 days
FWI 19.8
Min. humidity 41 %
81 km away, in 2022
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 5.4 mm on 31 Dec.
Curacaví fire, December 2023
2,137 ha
4 days
FWI 18.7
Min. humidity 39 %
71 km away, in 2023
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Valparaíso fire, February 2024
7,035 ha
4 days
FWI 19.3
Min. humidity 45 %
10 km away, in 2024
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Casablanca fire, December 2019
1,316 ha
4 days
FWI 18.3
Min. humidity 47 %
27 km away, in 2019
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Romeral fire, March 2019
1,429 ha
2 days
FWI 19.9
Min. humidity 43 %
216 km away, in 2019
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
What happened to them
Fires in the area that started in similar weather: 12. With fewer than 15 we give no figures: they would be more noise than signal.
This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it
How it ended
—first rain
—no rain in ten days
52km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 20 Nov, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain.
Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)
How a twin is chosen
- Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
- Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
- Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
- Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
- They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 8 Nov 2019
After · 27 Nov 2019
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
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 · 384Every 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 time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 2,036 haValparaíso15 November 2019 · 4 days · 9 km away
- 7,035 haValparaísoFebruary 2024 · 4 days · 10 km away
- 6,404 haQuilpuéJanuary 2021 · 4 days · 15 km away
- 3,339 haCasablancaDecember 2016 · 2 days · 27 km away
- 1,705 haVilla AlemanaDecember 2022 · 2 days · 31 km away
- 7,278 haCuracavíJanuary 2017 · 14 days · 40 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Valparaíso fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 15 November 2019 to 20 November 2019 (6 days). The perimeter dates it from 15 November 2019 to 19 November 2019.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 4,755 hectares (47.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Valparaíso (3,034 ha, 9.8 %); Casablanca (1,734 ha, 1.8 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 22.2 °C, humidity dropped to 31 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 26, 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.
RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version
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 adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 15 November 2019 to 19 November 2019. 384 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 2020, 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.