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Conesa fire, 30 January 2018 Conesa

Out · last detection 31 Jan 2018, 18:53 UTC

The fire started on 30 January 2018 in Conesa, Argentina, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,860 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 39th largest in Río Negro since 2016 (of 97 with a page). Number 35 in Argentina in 2018, of 179.

Burnt area
3,860ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
2days
30 Jan 2018 – 31 Jan 2018
Municipalities hit
1
departments
Started on
30 Jan
2018
Heat detections
187
in a single hotspot: 302 MW
Danger at start
64
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
6.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

31 Jan 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Jan31 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

3031

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

The weather it burned in

31°high
66km/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: 15.6 mm on 4 Feb.

This area had burned before

9% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 356 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Conesa where it started
    3,861 ha reached on 30 Jan
    0.4 %

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)
30 Jan 31.2 °C 17 % 66 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
31 Jan 29.1 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
1 Feb after 34.2 °C 12 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
2 Feb after 35.9 °C 19 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
3 Feb after 38.0 °C 28 % 40 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 48
4 Feb after 34.0 °C 42 % 43 km/h 15.6 mm Low 6

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 23 Jan 2018
After · 7 Feb 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 · 187Every 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 30 January 2018 and 31 January 2018: 2 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 3,860 hectares (38.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Conesa (3,861 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.2 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 66 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 64, 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.