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Caapucu fire, 4 March 2022 Caapucu

Out · last detection 21 Mar 2022, 17:04 UTC

The fire started on 4 March 2022 in Caapucu, Paraguay, and satellites saw it burning for 18 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,384 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 24th largest in Paraguarí since 2016 (of 68 with a page). Number 86 in Paraguay in 2022, of 185.

Burnt area
2,384ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
18days
4 Mar 2022 – 21 Mar 2022
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
4 Mar
2022
Heat detections
220
in a single hotspot: 41 MW
Danger at start
16
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
2.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

21 Mar 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Mar21 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

45678910121314151617192021

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
50km/h · peak gust
25%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 23.7 mm on 22 Mar.

This area had burned before

98% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 456 ha in 2016, 760 ha in 2018, 342 ha in 2019, 4,419 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,345 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Caapucu where it started
    2,395 ha reached on 4 Mar
    1.0 %

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)
4 Mar 35.8 °C 44 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
5 Mar 37.7 °C 38 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
6 Mar 35.5 °C 43 % 45 km/h 0.3 mm High 26
7 Mar 37.7 °C 37 % 50 km/h 0.2 mm High 28
8 Mar 33.2 °C 54 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
9 Mar 36.9 °C 40 % 32 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 20
10 Mar 30.2 °C 60 % 43 km/h 10.1 mm Very low 3
11 Mar 27.5 °C 54 % 41 km/h 1.3 mm Low 7
12 Mar 28.8 °C 40 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
13 Mar 30.0 °C 37 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
14 Mar 29.3 °C 32 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
15 Mar 31.1 °C 29 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
16 Mar 33.1 °C 33 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
17 Mar 35.8 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
18 Mar 34.9 °C 40 % 40 km/h 7.2 mm Low 8
19 Mar 26.2 °C 37 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
20 Mar 29.7 °C 33 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
21 Mar 33.0 °C 44 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
22 Mar after 26.7 °C 60 % 51 km/h 23.7 mm Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Feb 2022
After · 28 Mar 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 · 220Every 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 4 March 2022 and 21 March 2022: 18 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 2,384 hectares (23.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Caapucu (2,395 ha, 1.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.7 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 29, 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.