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Caapucu fire, February 2023 Caapucu

Out · last detection 13 Feb 2023, 17:37 UTC

The fire started on 4 February 2023 in Caapucu, Paraguay, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,560 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 19th largest in Paraguarí since 2016 (of 68 with a page). Number 86 in Paraguay in 2023, of 209.

Burnt area
2,560ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
4 Feb 2023 – 13 Feb 2023
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
4 Feb
2023
Heat detections
96
in a single hotspot: 40 MW
Danger at start
17
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
1.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

13 Feb 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Feb13 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

45678910111213

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
45km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 27.0 mm on 14 Feb.

This area had burned before

93% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,705 ha in 2020, 1,094 ha in 2021, 2,279 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,387 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Caapucu where it started
    2,569 ha reached on 4 Feb
    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 Feb 33.8 °C 31 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
5 Feb 34.6 °C 29 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
6 Feb 36.6 °C 27 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
7 Feb 38.3 °C 23 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
8 Feb 38.7 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
9 Feb 34.9 °C 38 % 28 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 20
10 Feb 37.1 °C 34 % 32 km/h 0.1 mm High 22
11 Feb 36.8 °C 33 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
12 Feb 37.4 °C 33 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
13 Feb 38.8 °C 38 % 45 km/h 0.1 mm High 30
14 Feb after 35.3 °C 47 % 46 km/h 27.0 mm Very low 4

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Jan 2023
After · 20 Feb 2023

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 9 February 2023 the air beside the fire reached 73 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 42: 2.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak73 µg/m³
Days over the guideline4 days
PM10105 µg/m³
Optical depth0.77
2345678910111213141516
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 · 96Every 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 February 2023 and 13 February 2023: 10 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 2,560 hectares (25.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Caapucu (2,569 ha, 1.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.8 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 30, 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.