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Caapucu fire, September 2019 Caapucu

Out · last detection 23 Sept 2019, 04:01 UTC

The fire started on 21 September 2019 in Caapucu, Paraguay, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,699 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 49th largest in Paraguarí since 2016 (of 68 with a page). Number 180 in Paraguay in 2019, of 231.

The power measured by the satellite is low (24.0 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
1,699ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
3days
21 Sept 2019 – 23 Sept 2019
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
21 Sept
2019
Heat detections
54
in a single hotspot: 24 MW
Danger at start
9
Low · FWI index
Energy released
310MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

23 Sept 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Sept23 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

212223

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

The weather it burned in

28°high
45km/h · peak gust
33%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.3 mm on 2 Oct.

This area had burned before

60% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 817 ha in 2016, 521 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,014 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Caapucu where it started
    1,709 ha reached on 21 Sept
    0.7 %

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)
21 Sept 25.2 °C 36 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
22 Sept 25.6 °C 33 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
23 Sept 28.0 °C 40 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
24 Sept after 29.0 °C 45 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
25 Sept after 28.7 °C 37 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
26 Sept after 29.0 °C 34 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
27 Sept after 30.7 °C 33 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
28 Sept after 34.3 °C 29 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
29 Sept after 34.9 °C 28 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
30 Sept after 37.3 °C 28 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
1 Oct after 38.6 °C 27 % 71 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
2 Oct after 30.7 °C 41 % 48 km/h 5.3 mm Very low 4

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 14 Sept 2019
After · 30 Sept 2019

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 · 54Every 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 Caapucu fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 21 September 2019 and 23 September 2019: 3 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 1,699 hectares (17.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Caapucu (1,709 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 28.0 °C, humidity dropped to 33 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 14, 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.