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Benjamín Aceval fire, 1 October 2020 Benjamín Aceval

Out · last detection 5 Oct 2020, 04:12 UTC

The fire started on 1 October 2020 in Benjamín Aceval, Paraguay, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,152 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 414th largest in PRESIDENTE HAYES since 2016 (of 738 with a page). Number 243 in Paraguay in 2020, of 424.

Burnt area
2,152ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
1 Oct 2020 – 5 Oct 2020
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
1 Oct
2020
Heat detections
66
in a single hotspot: 71 MW
Danger at start
76
Very extreme · FWI index
Energy released
741MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

5 Oct 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Oct5 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

12345

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

The weather it burned in

43°high
70km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 6.4 mm on 14 Oct.

This area had burned before

56% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,265 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,203 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Benjamín Aceval where it started
    2,154 ha reached on 1 Oct
    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)
1 Oct 43.3 °C 16 % 70 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 76
2 Oct 40.2 °C 20 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
3 Oct 27.5 °C 43 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
4 Oct 28.0 °C 43 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
5 Oct 27.9 °C 36 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
6 Oct after 32.5 °C 33 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
7 Oct after 39.1 °C 29 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
8 Oct after 41.0 °C 19 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
9 Oct after 34.7 °C 29 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
10 Oct after 34.4 °C 12 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
11 Oct after 37.6 °C 17 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
12 Oct after 37.2 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
13 Oct after 34.4 °C 33 % 39 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 44
14 Oct after 38.9 °C 27 % 56 km/h 6.4 mm High 31

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 24 Sept 2020
After · 12 Oct 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 · 66Every 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 October 2020 and 5 October 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 2,152 hectares (21.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Benjamín Aceval (2,154 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 43.3 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 70 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 76, class Very extreme.
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.