Skip to content
worldfires
AR · Argentina · →

Banda fire, August 2020 Banda

Out · last detection 10 Aug 2020, 17:29 UTC

The fire started on 4 August 2020 in Banda, Argentina, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,566 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 70th largest in Santiago del Estero since 2016 (of 320 with a page). Number 263 in Argentina in 2020, of 671.

Burnt area
2,566ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
4 Aug 2020 – 10 Aug 2020
Municipalities hit
1
departments
Started on
4 Aug
2020
Heat detections
144
in a single hotspot: 205 MW
Danger at start
61
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
3.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

10 Aug 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Aug10 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

45678910

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
58km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

It had gone 11 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

48% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,200 ha in 2017, 38 ha in 2018.

What happened to each town

  1. Banda where it started
    2,573 ha reached on 3 Aug
    0.7 %

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)
4 Aug 34.8 °C 16 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
5 Aug 34.9 °C 19 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
6 Aug 26.9 °C 24 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
7 Aug 24.4 °C 23 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
8 Aug 25.4 °C 28 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
9 Aug 31.4 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
10 Aug 28.6 °C 19 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
11 Aug after 18.8 °C 11 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
12 Aug after 19.3 °C 14 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
13 Aug after 23.3 °C 11 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
14 Aug after 28.3 °C 14 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
15 Aug after 23.5 °C 26 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
16 Aug after 25.4 °C 26 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
17 Aug after 26.4 °C 19 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
18 Aug after 29.5 °C 15 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
19 Aug after 18.0 °C 18 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
20 Aug after 15.9 °C 20 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 35

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Jul 2020
After · 17 Aug 2020

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 · 144Every 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 Banda fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 4 August 2020 and 10 August 2020: 7 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 2,566 hectares (25.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Banda (2,573 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.9 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 58 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 61, 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.

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.