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PY · 2020 yearbook

Wildfires in Paraguay in 2020

422 fires larger than 1,500 hectares in Paraguay in 2020, with 1,898,172 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 2 pages with faulty data, under review. They appear in the lists, marked.

The year in a few sentences

  1. According to Copernicus GWIS, 5,999,180 hectares burned in Paraguay in 2020: 2.0 times the average of the other years from 2012 to 2024 (2,952,690 ha). It is the year with the most burned area of the 13 in the record.

    Copernicus GWIS · See the data

  2. The worst week was 23 September to 29 September: 862,747 hectares burned in seven days, 14% of the year according to Copernicus GWIS.

    Copernicus GWIS · See the data

  3. The largest fire was the General Jose Maria Bruguez fire, which started on 18 September 2020 and burned 149,782 hectares: 8% of the area of the year's 422 fires with a page.

    WorldFires · See the data · Open the fire page

Official burned area
6.0 M ha
Copernicus GWIS · ×2.0 the average
Fires with a page
422
1,898,172 ha within their perimeters
Largest fire
150k ha
General Jose Maria Bruguez · 18 Sept
Highest FWI
—
Not yet calculated with the current method

Map of the year

Copernicus GWIS
One circle per fire, sized by its area. Tap one to open its page. Showing the 400 largest of 422.

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 2020 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 2020 itself.

0 2.0 M 4.0 M 6.0 M Worst week · 863k ha Jan Mar May Jul Sep Nov
2020 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.

2020: 5,999,180 ha Average of the other years: 2,952,690 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, 5,999,180 hectares burned in Paraguay in 2020: 2.0 times the average of the other years from 2012 to 2024 (2,952,690 ha). It is the year with the most burned area of the 13 in the record.
- The worst week was 23 September to 29 September: 862,747 hectares burned in seven days, 14% of the year according to Copernicus GWIS.
- The largest fire was the General Jose Maria Bruguez fire, which started on 18 September 2020 and burned 149,782 hectares: 8% of the area of the year's 422 fires with a page.

WorldFires, “Wildfires in Paraguay in 2020”, https://worldfires.org/en/country/paraguay/2020 (accessed 6 November 2026). Sources: Copernicus GWIS, WorldFires.

Fires of 2020, largest first · 424

Burned area in 2020 (Copernicus Land, Sentinel-3)

According to Copernicus Land, 5,097,715 ha burned in 2020: rank 1 of 7 complete years (1 = the most burned). The average of those years is 2,922,381 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 2020

  1. PRESIDENTE HAYES 2,173,015 ha
  2. ALTO PARAGUAY 340,097 ha
  3. Ñeembucú 337,988 ha
  4. SAN PEDRO 280,329 ha
  5. Itapúa 266,780 ha
  6. Paraguarí 252,519 ha
  7. Caazapá 231,123 ha
  8. Concepción 207,599 ha
  9. MISIONES 191,528 ha
  10. Caaguazú 146,189 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 Paraguay is published by: Secretaría de Emergencia Nacional · INFONA · Instituto Forestal Nacional

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