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Formosa fire, August 2023 Formosa

Out · last detection 4 Aug 2023, 17:12 UTC

The fire started on 2 August 2023 in Formosa, Argentina, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,382 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 267th largest in Formosa since 2016 (of 620 with a page). Number 83 in Argentina in 2023, of 180.

Burnt area
2,382ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
3days
2 Aug 2023 – 4 Aug 2023
Municipalities hit
1
departments
Started on
2 Aug
2023
Heat detections
81
in a single hotspot: 79 MW
Danger at start
38
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
599MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

4 Aug 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Aug4 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

234

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
42km/h · peak gust
26%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 7 Aug.

This area had burned before

96% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 953 ha in 2016, 571 ha in 2017, 1,638 ha in 2018, 920 ha in 2019, 715 ha in 2020, 1,965 ha in 2021, 74 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,282 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Formosa where it started
    2,388 ha reached on 2 Aug
    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)
2 Aug 35.2 °C 26 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
3 Aug 35.6 °C 28 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
4 Aug 34.3 °C 27 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
5 Aug after 34.8 °C 25 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
6 Aug after 35.8 °C 27 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
7 Aug after 28.2 °C 52 % 51 km/h 1.0 mm High 25

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 26 Jul 2023
After · 11 Aug 2023

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 4 August 2023 the air beside the fire reached 12 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak12 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1018 µg/m³
Optical depth0.48
311234567
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 · 81Every 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 Formosa fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 2 August 2023 and 4 August 2023: 3 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 2,382 hectares (23.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Formosa (2,388 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.6 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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

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.