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Vichuquén fire, 15 January 2017 Hualañé, Paredones, Vichuquén

Out · last detection 27 Jan 2017, 19:14 UTC

The fire started on 15 January 2017 in Vichuquén, Chile, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 64,765 hectares from heat detections, spread across 5 municipalities.

It is the 2th largest in Región del Maule since 2016 (of 52 with a page). Number 3 in Chile in 2017, of 56.

Burnt area
64,765ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
14days
15 Jan 2017 – 28 Jan 2017
Municipalities hit
5
communes
Started on
15 Jan
2017
Heat detections
3,892
in a single hotspot: 491 MW
Danger at start
34
High · FWI index
Energy released
124.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

27 Jan 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Jan28 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

15161718192021222324252627

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
56km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 19 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 4 Feb.

This area had burned before

1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 957 ha in 2016. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 863 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Hualañé
    31,549 ha reached on 17 Jan
    50 %
  2. Paredones
    11,888 ha reached on 18 Jan
    21 %
  3. Vichuquén where it started
    9,415 ha reached on 15 Jan
    21 %
  4. Lolol
    8,915 ha reached on 20 Jan
    15 %
  5. Licantén
    3,158 ha reached on 21 Jan
    12 %

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)
15 Jan 29.4 °C 23 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
16 Jan 30.4 °C 25 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
17 Jan 33.6 °C 22 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
18 Jan 32.3 °C 16 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
19 Jan 34.8 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
20 Jan 37.2 °C 13 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
21 Jan 35.5 °C 20 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
22 Jan 30.2 °C 31 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
23 Jan 30.5 °C 23 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
24 Jan 33.4 °C 22 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
25 Jan 37.4 °C 17 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
26 Jan 31.1 °C 30 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
27 Jan 30.0 °C 48 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
28 Jan 30.2 °C 40 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
29 Jan after 30.2 °C 33 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
30 Jan after 31.0 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
31 Jan after 30.0 °C 27 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
1 Feb after 29.7 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
2 Feb after 23.7 °C 38 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
3 Feb after 23.3 °C 36 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
4 Feb after 24.3 °C 42 % 38 km/h 1.0 mm Moderate 16

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 8 Jan 2017
After · 4 Feb 2017

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 · 3,892Every 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 Vichuquén fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 15 January 2017 and 28 January 2017: 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 64,765 hectares (647.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 5 municipalities: Hualañé (31,549 ha, 50 %); Paredones (11,888 ha, 21 %); Vichuquén (9,415 ha, 21 %); Lolol (8,915 ha, 15 %); Licantén (3,158 ha, 12 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.4 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 56 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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

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.

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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.