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AR · Argentina · –

Burruyacú fire, 27 October 2021 Burruyacú

Out · last detection 28 Oct 2021, 17:06 UTC

The fire started on 27 October 2021 in Burruyacú, Argentina, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,625 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 5th largest in Tucumán since 2016 (of 14 with a page). Number 73 in Argentina in 2021, of 216.

Burnt area
2,625ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
2days
27 Oct 2021 – 28 Oct 2021
Municipalities hit
1
departments
Started on
27 Oct
2021
Heat detections
101
in a single hotspot: 111 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
1.3GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Oct28 Oct
28 Oct 2021

How it evolved, day by day

27 Oct 2021 · 2,656 MW · 97 28 Oct 2021 · 15 MW · 4
27 Oct 28 Oct

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
50km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone 11 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 18.9 mm on 29 Oct.

This area had burned before

18% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 302 ha in 2018, 270 ha in 2019, 71 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 484 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 1.7% of the area of London (26 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Burruyacú where it started
    2,634 ha reached on 27 Oct
    0.7 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2020
Built-up area0.55 ha
Residents≈ 30

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.55 hectares of built-up land and about 30 residents (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
27 Oct 35.1 °C 18 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
28 Oct 36.8 °C 23 % 46 km/h 0.6 mm High 32
29 Oct after 35.3 °C 31 % 41 km/h 18.9 mm Very low 4

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 39.9, a minimum humidity of 18% and 11 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 20.

FWI at the start 39.9
Minimum humidity 18 %
Days without rain 11
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Burruyacú fire, November 2022
1,704 ha 1 day FWI 40.5 Min. humidity 17 % 13 km away, in 2022

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 21.4 mm on 21 Nov.

What happened to them

5 days
median duration
1,956 ha
median area
100 %
went past 1,000 ha
6.2 mm
rain at the end (median; 15 of 20 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (2,625 ha against a median of 1,956 ha) and lasted 2 days, against 5 days.

In 5 of 20, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 6.2 mm.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

18.9 mmfirst rain
29 Octthe day after it ended
50km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 28 Oct, and on 29 Oct 18.9 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 15 of 20, with a median of 6.2 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 20 Oct 2021
After · 4 Nov 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 · 101Every 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 Argentina

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Burruyacú fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 27 October 2021 and 28 October 2021: 2 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 2,625 hectares (26.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Burruyacú (2,634 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.8 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, class Very high.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Argentina (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 20. Their median duration was 5 days and their median area 1,956 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. In 5 of 20, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 6.2 mm.

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: 911 · 100 · Emergency number and official warnings

Satellite cross-check

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

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 911 · 100.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 101 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology

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 3.0 Intergovernmental Organisations (CC BY 3.0 IGO)). 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.