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Benjamín Aceval fire, 26 October 2019 Benjamín Aceval

Out · last detection 2 Nov 2019, 17:18 UTC

The fire started on 26 October 2019 in Benjamín Aceval, Paraguay, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,415 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 187th largest in PRESIDENTE HAYES since 2016 (of 738 with a page). Number 55 in Paraguay in 2019, of 231.

Burnt area
3,415ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
26 Oct 2019 – 3 Nov 2019
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
26 Oct
2019
Heat detections
124
in a single hotspot: 95 MW
Danger at start
10
Low · FWI index
Energy released
1.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

2 Nov 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 26 Oct3 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

2628293012

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

The weather it burned in

42°high
65km/h · peak gust
26%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 4 Nov.

This area had burned before

69% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 603 ha in 2016, 1,589 ha in 2017, 630 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,341 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Benjamín Aceval where it started
    3,423 ha reached on 23 Oct
    0.3 %

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 Oct 30.7 °C 36 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
24 Oct 33.6 °C 32 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
25 Oct 31.7 °C 41 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
26 Oct 38.2 °C 31 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
27 Oct 40.4 °C 29 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
28 Oct 40.7 °C 26 % 62 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
29 Oct 41.0 °C 27 % 65 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
30 Oct 41.6 °C 27 % 62 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
31 Oct 33.8 °C 45 % 38 km/h 0.1 mm High 23
1 Nov 38.2 °C 34 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
2 Nov 40.0 °C 31 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
3 Nov 36.9 °C 43 % 37 km/h 1.8 mm Moderate 16
4 Nov after 40.1 °C 26 % 58 km/h 1.0 mm Very high 39

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 19 Oct 2019
After · 10 Nov 2019

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 · 124Every 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 26 October 2019 and 3 November 2019: 9 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 3,415 hectares (34.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Benjamín Aceval (3,423 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 41.6 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 65 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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.