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Benjamín Aceval fire, November 2021 Benjamín Aceval

Out · last detection 7 Dec 2021, 17:56 UTC

The fire started on 30 November 2021 in Benjamín Aceval, Paraguay, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,975 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 475th largest in PRESIDENTE HAYES since 2016 (of 738 with a page). Number 164 in Paraguay in 2021, of 251.

Burnt area
1,975ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
30 Nov 2021 – 7 Dec 2021
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
30 Nov
2021
Heat detections
75
in a single hotspot: 58 MW
Danger at start
6
Low · FWI index
Energy released
784MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

7 Dec 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Nov7 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

30123457

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
41km/h · peak gust
28%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 12 Dec.

This area had burned before

35% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2 ha in 2018, 281 ha in 2019, 539 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 682 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Benjamín Aceval where it started
    1,984 ha reached on 30 Nov
    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)
30 Nov 30.2 °C 41 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
1 Dec 32.2 °C 41 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
2 Dec 33.7 °C 38 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
3 Dec 35.4 °C 35 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 11
4 Dec 37.2 °C 28 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
5 Dec 35.7 °C 39 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
6 Dec 34.5 °C 38 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
7 Dec 33.6 °C 35 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
8 Dec after 35.1 °C 30 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
9 Dec after 35.0 °C 26 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
10 Dec after 36.8 °C 27 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
11 Dec after 36.7 °C 29 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
12 Dec after 33.7 °C 50 % 40 km/h 1.1 mm Moderate 13

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 23 Nov 2021
After · 14 Dec 2021

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 · 75Every 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 30 November 2021 and 7 December 2021: 8 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 1,975 hectares (19.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Benjamín Aceval (1,984 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.2 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 19, class Moderate.
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.