'Fireballs' Reportedly Sparked Blazes Across Chile Last Week, But It Wasn't Meteorites

According to local news reports in Chile, something was seen blazing a trail across the sky over the island of Chiloé last Wednesday. Naturally, with several small fires appearing soon after the sightings, some residents concluded the two events were linked.

But experts have now ruled if what people saw was a meteorite, the space rock was innocent of arson. Which may seem somewhat strange, considering the sequence of events.

When residents around Dalcahue City on Chiloé Island found signs of burning bushes after witnesses had caught sight of a luminous object gliding eerily across the sky, the conclusion seemed obvious.

Se reporta caída de meteorito en mocopulli chiloe pic.twitter.com/7w3KGEgnln

— marcelo macaya (@mmacaya) September 25, 2019

 Celebrated astrophysicist and Chilean of the Year José Maza had speculated on the national broadcast network TVN that the bright object seen on September 25 could have been a meteorite, if not space debris.

Maza could be right about the glowing sky ball, but connecting it to patches of scorched Earth reported by Dalcahue residents isn't quite so straightforward.

One problem is that meteorites probably aren't all that hot. Not in ways we might imagine, anyway, and almost certainly not capable of causing fires.

Keeping in mind the number of people who have touched a freshly deposited meteorite is unsurprisingly low, most physicists argue they just wouldn't pack enough heat to set tinder alight.

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