Chimaera in antiquity, in addition to being the name of a monster, was the name of a volcanic site which was held, by euhemerizing geographers, to have inspired the myth. Some say this geothermically active region was the inspiration for the myth.

Ctesias (as cited by Pliny the Elder and quoted by Photius) identified the Chimaera with an area of permanent gas vents which can still be found today by hikers on the Lycian Way in southwest Turkey. Called in Turkish Yanar taş (flaming rock), it consists of some two dozen vents in the ground, grouped in two patches on the hillside above the Temple of Hephaistos about 3 km north of Çirali, near ancient Olympos, in Lycia. The vents emit methane thought to be of metamorphic origin, which can spontaneously ignite. In ancient times sailors could navigate by the flames, but today is used more to brew tea, the flames of little use for navigation now. (Strabo held the Chimaera to be a ravine on a different mountain in Lycia.)

Strabo and Pliny are the only surviving ancient sources who would be expected to discuss a Lycian toponym, but the placename is also attested by Isidore of Seville and Servius, the commentator on the Aeneid. Isidore quotes writers on natural history (see below) that Mount Chimaera was on fire here, had lions and goats there, and was full of snakes over there. Servius goes so far as to arrange these with the lions on the peak of the mountain, pastures full of goats in the middle, and serpents all about the base, thus imitating Homer’s description of the monster exactly.