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Caapucu fire, 7 February 2022 Caapucu

Out · last detection 19 Feb 2022, 18:07 UTC

The fire started on 7 February 2022 in Caapucu, Paraguay, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,694 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 2th largest in Paraguarí since 2016 (of 68 with a page). Number 12 in Paraguay in 2022, of 185.

Burnt area
6,694ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
13days
7 Feb 2022 – 19 Feb 2022
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
7 Feb
2022
Heat detections
328
in a single hotspot: 108 MW
Danger at start
25
High · FWI index
Energy released
4.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

19 Feb 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Feb19 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

78910111213141516171819

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
49km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.4 mm on 20 Feb.

This area had burned before

85% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 788 ha in 2016, 1,493 ha in 2017, 991 ha in 2018, 1,542 ha in 2019, 7,914 ha in 2020, 594 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,685 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Caapucu where it started
    6,713 ha reached on 31 Jan
    2.7 %

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)
31 Jan 37.7 °C 22 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
1 Feb 39.1 °C 21 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
2 Feb 38.7 °C 26 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
3 Feb 36.1 °C 42 % 37 km/h 8.8 mm Low 7
4 Feb 35.2 °C 44 % 32 km/h 4.8 mm Very low 4
5 Feb 31.9 °C 42 % 37 km/h 10.7 mm Very low 2
6 Feb 31.5 °C 28 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
7 Feb 31.6 °C 17 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
8 Feb 34.3 °C 21 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
9 Feb 35.5 °C 20 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
10 Feb 37.4 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
11 Feb 37.6 °C 29 % 49 km/h 0.1 mm High 32
12 Feb 33.8 °C 44 % 46 km/h 0.4 mm High 25
13 Feb 31.3 °C 37 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
14 Feb 34.3 °C 26 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
15 Feb 37.5 °C 22 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
16 Feb 39.1 °C 21 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
17 Feb 35.9 °C 29 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
18 Feb 37.8 °C 24 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
19 Feb 38.0 °C 22 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
20 Feb after 32.8 °C 46 % 42 km/h 3.4 mm Low 9

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 31 Jan 2022
After · 26 Feb 2022

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 · 328Every 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 7 February 2022 and 19 February 2022: 13 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 6,694 hectares (66.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Caapucu (6,713 ha, 2.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.1 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 32, 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.