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Copo fire, 24 September 2020 Copo

Out · last detection 29 Sept 2020, 06:06 UTC

The fire started on 24 September 2020 in Copo, Argentina, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,396 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 2th largest in Santiago del Estero since 2016 (of 320 with a page). Number 65 in Argentina in 2020, of 671.

Burnt area
6,396ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
24 Sept 2020 – 29 Sept 2020
Municipalities hit
1
departments
Started on
24 Sept
2020
Heat detections
112
in a single hotspot: 102 MW
Danger at start
58
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
1.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

29 Sept 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 24 Sept29 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

2526272829

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

The weather it burned in

42°high
64km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone 22 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

48% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 25 ha in 2016, 1,936 ha in 2017, 1,396 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,100 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Copo where it started
    6,424 ha reached on 25 Sept
    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)
24 Sept 38.2 °C 24 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
25 Sept 41.0 °C 22 % 64 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 70
26 Sept 41.8 °C 21 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
27 Sept 27.9 °C 19 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
28 Sept 29.3 °C 19 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
29 Sept 35.5 °C 24 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
30 Sept after 41.0 °C 21 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
1 Oct after 39.7 °C 24 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
2 Oct after 29.5 °C 34 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
3 Oct after 19.5 °C 50 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
4 Oct after 24.3 °C 37 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
5 Oct after 24.2 °C 34 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
6 Oct after 29.8 °C 26 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
7 Oct after 33.3 °C 27 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
8 Oct after 35.2 °C 23 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
9 Oct after 33.0 °C 18 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 17 Sept 2020
After · 6 Oct 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 · 112Every 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 Copo fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 24 September 2020 and 29 September 2020: 6 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 6,396 hectares (64.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Copo (6,424 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 41.8 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 64 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 70, 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.