Vega Honda
General information
- Category
- Wildfire
- Fire classification
- Convective plume
- Country
- Chile
- Year
- 2025
© ARAUCO
© EWED
The Vega Honda starts the 6th of February and made a run of 2.6km and spotting up to 1.3km, in a mixed land cover between crops and forested areas, but the wildland firefighters crews managed to control it under 150ha. On 8 February, the fire reignited, both at the main perimeter and at the spotting area. The most significant spread occurred from the spotting of the previous day, with a run of more than 6 km, most of it during the afternoon and evening. This run coincided with the Patagual fire. On the 9th, there was an opening in the right flank of the fire, with a high-intensity run of 1.5 km, followed by a low-intensity flank opening. At the back of the fire, a new ignition occurred, generating a 1.7 km run. Throughout the days, the column was convective, with no possibility of vertical growth, but with high surface speeds of over 1000 m/h, which hampered extinguishing efforts.
Fire behaviour and surface observations
| Start location lat | -36.791327 deg N |
| Start location lon | -71.980379 deg E |
| Start location name | Vega Honda |
| Start hour | 06/02/2025 19:00:00 (UTC) |
| Surface affected | 773 ha |
| Fire behavior | Surface, high intensity |
| Torching head | 20 % |
| Torching flanks | % |
| Flame length mean head | 6 m |
| Flame length max head | 10 m |
| Flame length mean flanks | 1 m |
| Flame length max flanks | 3 m |
| Spotting mean | 250 m |
| Spotting max | 1300 m |
| Rate of spread mean | 700 m/h |
| Rate of spread max | 2800 m/h |
| Burn ratio mean | 60 ha/h |
| Burn ratio max | 170 ha/h |
