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Benjamín Aceval fire, 8 March 2020 Benjamín Aceval

Out · last detection 12 Mar 2020, 18:01 UTC

The fire started on 8 March 2020 in Benjamín Aceval, Paraguay, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,992 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 240th largest in PRESIDENTE HAYES since 2016 (of 738 with a page). Number 149 in Paraguay in 2020, of 424.

Burnt area
2,992ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
8 Mar 2020 – 12 Mar 2020
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
8 Mar
2020
Heat detections
118
in a single hotspot: 46 MW
Danger at start
21
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
1.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

12 Mar 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Mar12 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

89101112

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
38km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.1 mm on 18 Mar.

This area had burned before

25% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 330 ha in 2017, 329 ha in 2018, 213 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 748 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Benjamín Aceval where it started
    3,010 ha reached on 4 Mar
    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)
4 Mar 36.0 °C 23 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
5 Mar 35.3 °C 27 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
6 Mar 35.8 °C 26 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
7 Mar 37.3 °C 26 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
8 Mar 38.4 °C 26 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
9 Mar 38.3 °C 31 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
10 Mar 38.5 °C 28 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
11 Mar 38.2 °C 23 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
12 Mar 39.4 °C 22 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
13 Mar after 40.2 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
14 Mar after 40.1 °C 24 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
15 Mar after 36.0 °C 35 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
16 Mar after 34.5 °C 45 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
17 Mar after 36.8 °C 44 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
18 Mar after 30.8 °C 64 % 40 km/h 2.1 mm Low 6

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Mar 2020
After · 19 Mar 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 · 118Every 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 8 March 2020 and 12 March 2020: 5 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 2,992 hectares (29.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Benjamín Aceval (3,010 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.4 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 33, class 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.