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Formosa fire, 14 March 2024 Formosa

Out · last detection 16 Mar 2024, 18:33 UTC

The fire started on 14 March 2024 in Formosa, Argentina, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,832 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 110th largest in Formosa since 2016 (of 620 with a page). Number 28 in Argentina in 2024, of 141.

Burnt area
3,832ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
14 Mar 2024 – 17 Mar 2024
Municipalities hit
1
departments
Started on
14 Mar
2024
Heat detections
91
in a single hotspot: 97 MW
Danger at start
33
High · FWI index
Energy released
869MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

16 Mar 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Mar17 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

141516

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

The weather it burned in

41°high
48km/h · peak gust
33%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 12.4 mm on 21 Mar.

This area had burned before

70% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 599 ha in 2016, 409 ha in 2017, 553 ha in 2018, 198 ha in 2019, 1,916 ha in 2020, 1,858 ha in 2021, 67 ha in 2022, 814 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,667 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Formosa where it started
    3,839 ha reached on 14 Mar
    0.6 %

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)
14 Mar 40.8 °C 33 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
15 Mar 38.7 °C 40 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
16 Mar 41.3 °C 37 % 46 km/h 0.1 mm High 38
17 Mar 33.4 °C 52 % 45 km/h 0.3 mm High 29
18 Mar after 39.1 °C 37 % 50 km/h 0.1 mm High 32
19 Mar after 40.2 °C 34 % 43 km/h 0.4 mm High 38
20 Mar after 40.6 °C 31 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
21 Mar after 33.1 °C 50 % 46 km/h 12.4 mm Low 8

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Mar 2024
After · 24 Mar 2024

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 17 March 2024 the air beside the fire reached 82 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 52: 3.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak82 µg/m³
Days over the guideline2 days
PM10117 µg/m³
Optical depth1.64
121314151617181920
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 · 91Every 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 14 March 2024 and 17 March 2024: 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 3,832 hectares (38.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Formosa (3,839 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 41.3 °C, humidity dropped to 33 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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.