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AR · 2021 yearbook

Wildfires in Argentina in 2021

216 fires larger than 1,500 hectares in Argentina in 2021, with 702,060 hectares burned according to their perimeters. Here is the whole year: what the official record says, when and where it burned and what the weather was like.

Only fires of 1,500 ha or more get an entry: smaller ones are not in the lists or the entry totals, but they are in the GWIS yearly series.

These figures leave out one page with faulty data, under review. They appear in the lists, marked.

The year in a few sentences

  1. According to Copernicus GWIS, 3,909,732 hectares burned in Argentina in 2021: 92% of the average of the other years from 2012 to 2024 (4,236,826 ha).

    Copernicus GWIS · See the data

  2. The worst week was 13 August to 19 August: 368,554 hectares burned in seven days, 9% of the year according to Copernicus GWIS.

    Copernicus GWIS · See the data

  3. The largest fire was the Sobremonte fire, which started on 1 October 2021 and burned 28,897 hectares: 4% of the area of the year's 216 fires with a page.

    WorldFires · See the data · Open the fire page

  4. The day of highest danger at a fire this year was 1 September 2021: a Fire Weather Index of 81 (very extreme on the EFFIS scale) at the Alberdi fire, calculated by WorldFires from ERA5.

    WorldFires · ERA5 · See the data · Open the fire page

Official burned area
3.9 M ha
Copernicus GWIS · ×0.9 the average
Fires with a page
216
702,060 ha within their perimeters
Largest fire
29k ha
Sobremonte · 1 Oct
Highest FWI
81 Very extreme
1 Sept · Alberdi

Map of the year

Copernicus GWIS
One circle per fire, sized by its area. Tap one to open its page.

Month by month

Hectares within the perimeters by the month the fire started. Tap a month to see it on the map.

Week by week, against other years

Copernicus GWIS

Cumulative burned area in 2021 over the lowest and highest of each week in the record since 2012, and its average. The bars below show what burned each week. Tap the chart to see a week. The average and the band are the Copernicus GWIS climatology for 2012–2025, which includes 2021 itself.

0 3.2 M 6.5 M 9.7 M Worst week · 369k ha Jan Mar May Jul Sep Nov
2021 average 2012–2025 lowest and highest Hectares each week

Every year since 2012

Copernicus GWIS

Hectares burned per year in the official record. Tap a year to open its yearbook.

2021: 3,909,732 ha Average of the other years: 4,236,826 ha

Cite this

Markdown version

Copy the sentences with their source and link. WorldFires data are CC BY 4.0: credit WorldFires and the original source.

- According to Copernicus GWIS, 3,909,732 hectares burned in Argentina in 2021: 92% of the average of the other years from 2012 to 2024 (4,236,826 ha).
- The worst week was 13 August to 19 August: 368,554 hectares burned in seven days, 9% of the year according to Copernicus GWIS.
- The largest fire was the Sobremonte fire, which started on 1 October 2021 and burned 28,897 hectares: 4% of the area of the year's 216 fires with a page.
- The day of highest danger at a fire this year was 1 September 2021: a Fire Weather Index of 81 (very extreme on the EFFIS scale) at the Alberdi fire, calculated by WorldFires from ERA5.

WorldFires, “Wildfires in Argentina in 2021”, https://worldfires.org/en/country/argentina/2021 (accessed 12 November 2026). Sources: Copernicus GWIS, WorldFires, WorldFires · ERA5.

Fires of 2021, largest first · 217

Burned area in 2021 (Copernicus Land, Sentinel-3)

According to Copernicus Land, 4,065,828 ha burned in 2021: rank 3 of 7 complete years (1 = the most burned). The average of those years is 5,099,512 ha.

The area the Sentinel-3 satellite sees burned each month, separate from the fire pages. It is the same source and the same method every year, so years can be compared with each other. It counts everything that burns, including crop and pasture burning, which is why it does not match the fire pages or the official statistics.

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec

Where most burned in 2021

  1. Santa Fe 925,275 ha
  2. Formosa 587,257 ha
  3. Santiago del Estero 549,444 ha
  4. Corrientes 492,084 ha
  5. Buenos Aires 376,421 ha
  6. Chaco 238,053 ha
  7. Córdoba 192,130 ha
  8. Tucumán 169,583 ha
  9. Salta 150,022 ha
  10. San Luis 111,506 ha

The whole series since 2018

Source: Copernicus Land Monitoring Service, “Burnt Area 2018-present (raster 300 m), global, monthly – version 4”, monthly Sentinel-3 product, DOI 10.2909/8fa58061-28ab-49bb-9b77-c26b50733e34. Generated using European Union’s Copernicus Land Monitoring Service information; worldfires.org adds up, by country and region, the true area of the 300 m cells where a burn was detected. Latest month published: May 2026. Product page · Methodology

Sources and limits

Fire-page areas are satellite-measured perimeters and may differ from official statistics. The yearly and weekly record is the Copernicus GWIS estimate. The FWI is our own calculation from ERA5 at each fire's location: it is not an official danger warning.

Official information for Argentina is published by: Servicio Nacional de Manejo del Fuego

Perimeters: Copernicus EFFIS and GWIS (and MTBS, NIFC or NBAC in North America). Hotspots: NASA FIRMS (VIIRS). Weather: Copernicus ERA5 via Open-Meteo. How it is calculated