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Benjamín Aceval fire, 9 September 2020 Benjamín Aceval

Out · last detection 13 Sept 2020, 04:25 UTC

The fire started on 9 September 2020 in Benjamín Aceval, Paraguay, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,600 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 316th largest in PRESIDENTE HAYES since 2016 (of 738 with a page). Number 185 in Paraguay in 2020, of 424.

Burnt area
2,600ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
9 Sept 2020 – 13 Sept 2020
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
9 Sept
2020
Heat detections
71
in a single hotspot: 215 MW
Danger at start
11
Low · FWI index
Energy released
943MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

13 Sept 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Sept13 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

910111213

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
42km/h · peak gust
29%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 8.0 mm on 17 Sept.

This area had burned before

16% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 117 ha in 2016, 316 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Benjamín Aceval where it started
    2,608 ha reached on 9 Sept
    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)
9 Sept 32.5 °C 46 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
10 Sept 33.9 °C 47 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
11 Sept 37.7 °C 30 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
12 Sept 36.3 °C 32 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
13 Sept 36.6 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
14 Sept after 26.6 °C 59 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
15 Sept after 22.0 °C 58 % 32 km/h 0.8 mm Low 11
16 Sept after 26.5 °C 58 % 43 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 12
17 Sept after 26.3 °C 57 % 36 km/h 8.0 mm Very low 2

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 2 Sept 2020
After · 20 Sept 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 · 71Every 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 9 September 2020 and 13 September 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 2,600 hectares (26.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Benjamín Aceval (2,608 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.7 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 29, 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.