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Benjamín Aceval fire, 1 December 2021 Benjamín Aceval

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

The fire started on 1 December 2021 in Benjamín Aceval, Paraguay, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,515 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 327th largest in PRESIDENTE HAYES since 2016 (of 738 with a page). Number 122 in Paraguay in 2021, of 251.

Burnt area
2,515ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
1 Dec 2021 – 7 Dec 2021
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
1 Dec
2021
Heat detections
68
in a single hotspot: 31 MW
Danger at start
9
Low · FWI index
Energy released
600MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

7 Dec 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Dec7 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

1234567

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
42km/h · peak gust
27%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.6 mm on 12 Dec.

This area had burned before

85% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 777 ha in 2016, 804 ha in 2017, 561 ha in 2019, 1,295 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,147 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Benjamín Aceval where it started
    2,526 ha reached on 1 Dec
    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 Dec 32.4 °C 39 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
2 Dec 34.1 °C 33 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
3 Dec 35.7 °C 32 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
4 Dec 37.4 °C 27 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
5 Dec 35.9 °C 36 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
6 Dec 34.8 °C 37 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
7 Dec 33.6 °C 34 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
8 Dec after 35.3 °C 30 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
9 Dec after 35.2 °C 26 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
10 Dec after 37.0 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
11 Dec after 36.6 °C 30 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
12 Dec after 33.2 °C 50 % 42 km/h 3.6 mm Low 7

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 24 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 · 68Every 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 December 2021 and 7 December 2021: 7 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 2,515 hectares (25.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Benjamín Aceval (2,526 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.4 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 20, 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.