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Conesa fire, 20 January 2020 Conesa

Out · last detection 23 Jan 2020, 18:15 UTC

The fire started on 20 January 2020 in Conesa, Argentina, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,946 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 26th largest in Río Negro since 2016 (of 97 with a page). Number 101 in Argentina in 2020, of 671.

Burnt area
4,946ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
20 Jan 2020 – 23 Jan 2020
Municipalities hit
1
departments
Started on
20 Jan
2020
Heat detections
222
in a single hotspot: 212 MW
Danger at start
28
High · FWI index
Energy released
5.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

23 Jan 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Jan23 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

20212223

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
54km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 28 Jan.

This area had burned before

13% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 632 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Conesa where it started
    4,943 ha reached on 20 Jan
    0.5 %

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)
20 Jan 31.5 °C 17 % 46 km/h 0.1 mm High 28
21 Jan 32.8 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
22 Jan 35.9 °C 23 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
23 Jan 36.5 °C 31 % 54 km/h 5.6 mm Moderate 14
24 Jan after 31.5 °C 21 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
25 Jan after 28.2 °C 26 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
26 Jan after 25.8 °C 27 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
27 Jan after 29.2 °C 20 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
28 Jan after 31.6 °C 31 % 52 km/h 1.1 mm High 24

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 13 Jan 2020
After · 30 Jan 2020

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 · 222Every 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 20 January 2020 and 23 January 2020: 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 4,946 hectares (49.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Conesa (4,943 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.5 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 54 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 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.