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Benjamín Aceval fire, 23 July 2017 Benjamín Aceval, Villa Hayes

Out · last detection 27 Jul 2017, 17:42 UTC

The fire started on 23 July 2017 in Benjamín Aceval, Paraguay, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,883 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 259th largest in PRESIDENTE HAYES since 2016 (of 738 with a page). Number 44 in Paraguay in 2017, of 261.

Burnt area
2,883ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
23 Jul 2017 – 28 Jul 2017
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
23 Jul
2017
Heat detections
107
in a single hotspot: 58 MW
Danger at start
43
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

27 Jul 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Jul28 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

2324252627

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
53km/h · peak gust
26%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 7.7 mm on 2 Aug.

This area had burned before

32% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 916 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Benjamín Aceval where it started
    2,086 ha reached on 23 Jul
    0.2 %
  2. Villa Hayes
    799 ha reached on 23 Jul
    0.0 %

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)
23 Jul 32.6 °C 29 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
24 Jul 33.5 °C 29 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
25 Jul 33.0 °C 32 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
26 Jul 32.4 °C 26 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
27 Jul 31.4 °C 31 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
28 Jul 31.2 °C 27 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
29 Jul after 31.8 °C 27 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
30 Jul after 32.0 °C 31 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
31 Jul after 30.7 °C 30 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
1 Aug after 30.1 °C 37 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
2 Aug after 25.4 °C 41 % 63 km/h 7.7 mm Low 9

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 16 Jul 2017
After · 4 Aug 2017

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 · 107Every 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 Paraguay ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Benjamín Aceval fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 23 July 2017 and 28 July 2017: 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 2,883 hectares (28.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Benjamín Aceval (2,086 ha, 0.2 %); Villa Hayes (799 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.5 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, class Very high.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Paraguay (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: 132 · 911

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 132 · 911.

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 4.0 (CC BY 4.0)). 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.