How long did the Copo fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 10 September 2026 and 17 September 2026: 8 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 1,677 hectares (16.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Copo (1,684 ha, 0.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 43.2 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 57 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, class Very 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.

AR · Argentina · 2026-09-10 → 2026-09-17

Copo fire, September 2026 Copo

Out · last detection 17 Sept 2026, 05:23 UTC

The fire started on 10 September 2026 in Copo, Argentina, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,677 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 244th largest in Santiago del Estero since 2016 (of 320 with a page). Number 57 in Argentina in 2026, of 74.

Burnt area: 1,677ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 8days; 10 Sept 2026 – 17 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; departments
Started on: 10 Sept; 2026
Heat detections: 57; in a single hotspot: 96 MW
Danger at start: 23; High · FWI index
Energy released: 990MW; sum of detected power

Play back 17 Sept 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Sept17 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

11151617

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

The weather it burned in

43°high

57km/h · peak gust

19%lowest humidity

It had gone 21 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

Copo where it started

1,684 ha

0.1 %

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)
10 Sept	30.1 °C	29 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
11 Sept	26.6 °C	37 %	37 km/h	0.3 mm	High 23
12 Sept	20.7 °C	43 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
13 Sept	17.1 °C	53 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 17
14 Sept	21.6 °C	39 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 16
15 Sept	25.5 °C	34 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
16 Sept	29.0 °C	24 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
17 Sept	30.9 °C	26 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
18 Sept after	27.7 °C	47 %	36 km/h	0.3 mm	High 22
19 Sept after	26.9 °C	62 %	20 km/h	4.1 mm	Very low 3
20 Sept after	34.5 °C	48 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 11
21 Sept after	25.1 °C	31 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
22 Sept after	18.7 °C	30 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
23 Sept after	25.2 °C	25 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
24 Sept after	31.5 °C	28 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
25 Sept after	36.7 °C	34 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
26 Sept after	40.5 °C	25 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
27 Sept after	43.2 °C	19 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
28 Sept after	41.2 °C	28 %	57 km/h	0.6 mm	Very high 45
29 Sept after	24.2 °C	78 %	42 km/h	11.6 mm	Very low 0
30 Sept after	20.6 °C	73 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 2
1 Oct after	24.4 °C	45 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 7
2 Oct after	28.4 °C	37 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 15
3 Oct after	35.0 °C	33 %	42 km/h	0.6 mm	High 25
4 Oct after	24.8 °C	53 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 3 Sept 2026

After · 24 Sept 2026

Before After

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 20 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 22 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak22 µg/m³

Days over the guideline0 days

PM1025 µg/m³

Optical depth0.70

WHO 15

89101112131415161718192021222324252627

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 · 57Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Argentina ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Copo fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 10 September 2026 and 17 September 2026: 8 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 1,677 hectares (16.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Copo (1,684 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 43.2 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 57 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, class Very 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

Servicio Nacional de Manejo del Fuego ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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What really happened?

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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.

Where it burned