In addition to these ferocious winds, Maule had experienced the same "collapsing" pyroCb cloud that Portuguese villages had described. But in the Maule fire, the unusual weather wasn"t confined to Chile. Smoke from the fires travelled 1,000km (620 miles) north to just off the coast to the Juan Fernández Islands, where it caused humidity to fall from 90% to 20% and temperatures to lower by 3-4C, says Castellnou.