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Benjamín Aceval fire, 1 September 2017 Benjamín Aceval

Out · last detection 4 Sept 2017, 17:11 UTC

The fire started on 1 September 2017 in Benjamín Aceval, Paraguay, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,203 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 394th largest in PRESIDENTE HAYES since 2016 (of 738 with a page). Number 101 in Paraguay in 2017, of 261.

Burnt area
2,203ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
1 Sept 2017 – 4 Sept 2017
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
1 Sept
2017
Heat detections
53
in a single hotspot: 42 MW
Danger at start
34
High · FWI index
Energy released
549MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

4 Sept 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Sept4 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

1234

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
53km/h · peak gust
26%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 5 Sept.

This area had burned before

13% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 346 ha in 2016. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 296 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Benjamín Aceval where it started
    2,210 ha reached on 29 Aug
    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)
29 Aug 37.5 °C 26 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
30 Aug 27.3 °C 45 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
31 Aug 26.0 °C 46 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
1 Sept 35.2 °C 33 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
2 Sept 36.7 °C 27 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
3 Sept 36.4 °C 26 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
4 Sept 35.7 °C 26 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
5 Sept after 18.8 °C 70 % 49 km/h 1.0 mm Moderate 14

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Aug 2017
After · 11 Sept 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 · 53Every 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 1 September 2017 and 4 September 2017: 4 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 2,203 hectares (22.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Benjamín Aceval (2,210 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.5 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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.