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Conesa fire, 12 January 2018 Conesa

Out · last detection 15 Jan 2018, 18:54 UTC

The fire started on 12 January 2018 in Conesa, Argentina, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,524 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 22th largest in Río Negro since 2016 (of 97 with a page). Number 19 in Argentina in 2018, of 179.

Burnt area
5,524ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
12 Jan 2018 – 15 Jan 2018
Municipalities hit
1
departments
Started on
12 Jan
2018
Heat detections
247
in a single hotspot: 130 MW
Danger at start
43
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
5.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

15 Jan 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Jan15 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

131415

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
52km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.6 mm on 21 Jan.

This area had burned before

5% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 289 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Conesa where it started
    5,523 ha reached on 13 Jan
    0.6 %

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)
12 Jan 35.5 °C 24 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
13 Jan 25.3 °C 26 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
14 Jan 29.8 °C 21 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
15 Jan 33.5 °C 13 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
16 Jan after 33.0 °C 13 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
17 Jan after 30.9 °C 21 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
18 Jan after 30.0 °C 24 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
19 Jan after 31.5 °C 28 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
20 Jan after 35.5 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
21 Jan after 37.7 °C 27 % 30 km/h 1.6 mm High 30

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Jan 2018
After · 22 Jan 2018

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 · 247Every 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 Conesa fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 12 January 2018 and 15 January 2018: 4 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 5,524 hectares (55.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Conesa (5,523 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.5 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, class Extreme.
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.

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

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 911 · 100.

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.