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PE · Peru · –

Coronel Portillo fire, 19 September 2022 Coronel Portillo

Out · last detection 29 Sept 2022, 06:15 UTC

The fire started on 19 September 2022 in Coronel Portillo, Peru, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,047 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 48th largest in Ucayali since 2016 (of 52 with a page). Number 54 in Peru in 2022, of 61.

The power measured by the satellite is low (29.2 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
1,047ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
11days
19 Sept 2022 – 29 Sept 2022
Municipalities hit
1
provinces
Started on
19 Sept
2022
Heat detections
32
in a single hotspot: 29 MW
Danger at start
8
Low · FWI index
Average daily power
23MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 Sept29 Sept
29 Sept 2022

How it evolved, day by day

19 Sept 2022 · 1 MW · 1 20 Sept 2022 · 12 MW · 1 23 Sept 2022 · 7 MW · 5 25 Sept 2022 · 17 MW · 6 27 Sept 2022 · 97 MW · 4 28 Sept 2022 · 12 MW · 7 29 Sept 2022 · 12 MW · 8
19 Sept 23 Sept 27 Sept 29 Sept

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
29km/h · peak gust
41%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 43.7 mm on 30 Sept.

This area had burned before

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

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 0.7% of the area of London (10 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Coronel Portillo 135,161 inhabitants where it started
    1,053 ha reached on 19 Sept
    0.0 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2020
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
19 Sept 35.0 °C 51 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
20 Sept 34.3 °C 55 % 26 km/h 0.1 mm Low 10
21 Sept 35.8 °C 43 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
22 Sept 37.5 °C 42 % 23 km/h 0.1 mm Low 10
23 Sept 28.8 °C 76 % 29 km/h 22.3 mm Very low 0
24 Sept 30.9 °C 57 % 18 km/h 2.1 mm Very low 0
25 Sept 33.5 °C 53 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 1
26 Sept 35.0 °C 53 % 19 km/h 0.5 mm Very low 5
27 Sept 36.2 °C 47 % 20 km/h 0.1 mm Low 6
28 Sept 37.0 °C 41 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
29 Sept 36.2 °C 53 % 23 km/h 22.0 mm Very low 4
30 Sept after 25.4 °C 93 % 35 km/h 43.7 mm Very low 0

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 8.0, a minimum humidity of 51% and 2 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 20.

FWI at the start 8.0
Minimum humidity 51 %
Days without rain 2
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Padre Abad fire, August 2017
1,196 ha 10 days FWI 7.3 Min. humidity 52 % 59 km away, in 2017

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 10.7 mm on 9 Sept.

What happened to them

10 days
median duration
1,266 ha
median area
100 %
went past 1,000 ha
8.9 mm
rain at the end (median; 20 of 20 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (1,047 ha against a median of 1,266 ha) and lasted 11 days, against 10 days.

All of them had rain in the ten days after the end: the first rainy day brought a median of 8.9 mm.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

43.7 mmfirst rain
30 Septthe day after it ended
29km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 29 Sept, and on 30 Sept 43.7 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 20 of 20, with a median of 8.9 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 12 Sept 2022
After · 6 Oct 2022

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 23 September 2022 the air beside the fire reached 385 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 194: 13 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak385 µg/m³
Days over the guideline13 days
PM10550 µg/m³
Optical depth1.61
20 Sept23 Sept26 Sept29 Sept2 Oct
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 · 32Every 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 Peru

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Coronel Portillo fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 19 September 2022 to 29 September 2022 (11 days). The perimeter dates it from 22 September 2022 to 29 September 2022.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 1,047 hectares (10.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Coronel Portillo (1,053 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.5 °C, humidity dropped to 41 % and gusts hit 29 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 10, class Low.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Peru (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 20. Their median duration was 10 days and their median area 1,266 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. All of them had rain in the ten days after the end: the first rainy day brought a median of 8.9 mm.

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: 116 · 105 · Emergency number and official warnings

Satellite cross-check

History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Start date: 22 September 2022 → 19 September 2022.

RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version

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 116 · 105.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 22 September 2022 to 29 September 2022. 32 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology

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.