Skip to content
worldfires
en
AR · Argentina · →

Alberdi fire, September 2016 Alberdi

Out · last detection 22 Sept 2016, 17:17 UTC

The fire started on 17 September 2016 in Alberdi, Argentina, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,240 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 104th largest in Santiago del Estero since 2016 (of 320 with a page). Number 128 in Argentina in 2016, of 255.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Alberdi · 2022Alberdi · 2020Alberdi · 2022Alberdi · 2023

Burnt area
2,240ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
17 Sept 2016 – 22 Sept 2016
Municipalities hit
1
departments
Started on
17 Sept
2016
Heat detections
79
in a single hotspot: 198 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
366MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Sept22 Sept
22 Sept 2016

How it evolved, day by day

17 Sept 2016 · 1,480 MW · 16 18 Sept 2016 · 82 MW · 12 19 Sept 2016 · 147 MW · 4 20 Sept 2016 · 385 MW · 23 21 Sept 2016 · 87 MW · 17 22 Sept 2016 · 18 MW · 7
17 Sept 18 Sept 19 Sept 20 Sept 21 Sept 22 Sept

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

36°high
54km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone 14 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 1.4% of the area of London (22 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Alberdi where it started
    2,249 ha reached on 17 Sept
    0.2 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

The weather day by day

ECMWF ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, the standard reference for past weather, and the Canadian Fire Weather Index (the same system Copernicus uses), computed by WorldFires from that data. Days after the fire run until the first rain.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
17 Sept 36.4 °C 25 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
18 Sept 31.8 °C 21 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
19 Sept 25.6 °C 29 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
20 Sept 28.3 °C 24 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
21 Sept 31.3 °C 17 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
22 Sept 36.3 °C 22 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
23 Sept after 26.9 °C 39 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
24 Sept after 17.8 °C 35 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
25 Sept after 25.5 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
26 Sept after 31.2 °C 23 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
27 Sept after 34.8 °C 23 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
28 Sept after 37.1 °C 25 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
29 Sept after 29.2 °C 32 % 45 km/h 0.7 mm High 35
30 Sept after 30.5 °C 35 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
1 Oct after 30.4 °C 35 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
2 Oct after 30.1 °C 36 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 32

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

Before · 10 Sept 2016
After · 29 Sept 2016

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Detections table · 79Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
⬇ Download CSV Times in UTC. Each detection is a 375 m pixel: a large fire yields hundreds per pass.
Date and timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Argentina ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Alberdi fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 17 September 2016 and 22 September 2016: 6 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,240 hectares (22.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Alberdi (2,249 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.4 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, class Extreme.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Argentina (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

Where to verify it

A satellite detection is not an official report. Final figures and the fire’s status are published by each country’s emergency service.

Emergency number: 911 · 100

Satellite cross-check

Does something look wrong on this page?

This page is built from satellite data and official records, and it sometimes gets things wrong: the wrong dates, the wrong town, two fires merged into one, or something that was not a wildfire at all. If you know this fire first-hand (you live nearby, saw it, fought it or reported on it), tell us what really happened and we will check it.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy. This is not an emergency service: if there is a fire now, call 911 · 100.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 79 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

Where this data comes from

The perimeter comes from the Copernicus Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS), which rebuilds it from MODIS and VIIRS heat detections and publishes it under CC BY 4.0. It is not measured on imagery as in Europe, so it is an estimate. Heat detections come from the VIIRS sensors aboard Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20, distributed by NASA FIRMS at 375 m resolution. Municipal boundaries come from geoBoundaries ADM2 (Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Intergovernmental Organisations (CC BY 3.0 IGO)). The area per municipality is computed by WorldFires by crossing the perimeter with those boundaries, so it may differ from each country’s official figure.