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Benjamín Aceval fire, November 2024 Benjamín Aceval

Out · last detection 14 Nov 2024, 17:36 UTC

The fire started on 10 November 2024 in Benjamín Aceval, Paraguay, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,688 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 613th largest in PRESIDENTE HAYES since 2016 (of 738 with a page). Number 150 in Paraguay in 2024, of 190.

Burnt area
1,688ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
10 Nov 2024 – 13 Nov 2024
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
10 Nov
2024
Heat detections
44
in a single hotspot: 121 MW
Danger at start
10
Low · FWI index
Energy released
1.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

14 Nov 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Nov13 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

10111314

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
64km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.3 mm on 18 Nov.

This area had burned before

99% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 110 ha in 2016, 70 ha in 2018, 1,780 ha in 2020, 852 ha in 2021, 804 ha in 2022, 444 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,671 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Benjamín Aceval where it started
    1,696 ha reached on 10 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)
10 Nov 36.3 °C 30 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
11 Nov 39.3 °C 26 % 64 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
12 Nov 24.3 °C 41 % 51 km/h 0.5 mm Moderate 16
13 Nov 29.5 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
14 Nov after 32.3 °C 23 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
15 Nov after 36.1 °C 19 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
16 Nov after 39.6 °C 24 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
17 Nov after 38.8 °C 37 % 41 km/h 0.1 mm High 24
18 Nov after 33.8 °C 49 % 31 km/h 2.3 mm Low 6

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Nov 2024
After · 20 Nov 2024

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 12 November 2024 the air beside the fire reached 20 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak20 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1020 µg/m³
Optical depth0.34
8910111213141516
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 44Every 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 10 November 2024 and 13 November 2024: 4 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 1,688 hectares (16.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Benjamín Aceval (1,696 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.3 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 64 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 27, 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.