Formosa fire, 11 March 2024 Pilcomayo, Formosa
The fire started on 11 March 2024 in Formosa, Argentina, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 23,802 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 6th largest in Formosa since 2016 (of 620 with a page). Number 4 in Argentina in 2024, of 142.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 23,802ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 11days
- 11 Mar 2024 – 21 Mar 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- departments
- Started on
- 11 Mar
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 889
- in a single hotspot: 319 MW
- Danger at start
- 26
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 1.1GW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
70% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,597 ha in 2016, 1,548 ha in 2017, 2,512 ha in 2018, 2,034 ha in 2019, 11,680 ha in 2020, 3,168 ha in 2021, 9,201 ha in 2022, 774 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 16,780 ha that had burned before.
- 7,324 ha Pilcomayo fire, January 2022 81,287 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,031 ha Pilcomayo fire, March 2020 2,117 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,739 ha Formosa fire, September 2020 4,767 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,710 ha Pilcomayo fire, December 2021 2,304 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,288 ha Pilcomayo fire, October 2020 2,604 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 508 ha Pilcomayo fire, September 2018 1,525 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 298 ha Formosa fire, February 2019 3,746 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 78 ha Formosa fire, March 2020 2,856 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
19,994 ha reached on 12 Mar3.7 %
-
Formosa where it started3,921 ha reached on 11 Mar0.6 %
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 2025Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11 Mar | 39.0 °C | 37 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 12 Mar | 39.6 °C | 36 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 13 Mar | 39.9 °C | 35 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 14 Mar | 40.9 °C | 33 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 15 Mar | 39.0 °C | 40 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 16 Mar | 41.3 °C | 37 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 17 Mar | 33.9 °C | 51 % | 44 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 30 |
| 18 Mar | 38.7 °C | 39 % | 48 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 33 |
| 19 Mar | 39.9 °C | 35 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 20 Mar | 40.3 °C | 32 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 21 Mar | 33.1 °C | 49 % | 44 km/h | 11.5 mm | Low 8 |
| 22 Mar after | 26.4 °C | 57 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 23 Mar after | 30.5 °C | 60 % | 25 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 24 Mar after | 32.7 °C | 51 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 25 Mar after | 33.5 °C | 40 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 21 |
| 26 Mar after | 33.6 °C | 40 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 27 Mar after | 35.1 °C | 43 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 28 Mar after | 35.6 °C | 43 % | 27 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 22 |
| 29 Mar after | 36.1 °C | 36 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 30 Mar after | 37.1 °C | 37 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 31 Mar after | 36.8 °C | 43 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 17 March 2024 the air beside the fire reached 72 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 41: 2.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 889Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Formosa fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 11 March 2024 to 21 March 2024 (11 days). The perimeter dates it from 12 March 2024 to 21 March 2024.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 23,802 hectares (238.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Pilcomayo (19,994 ha, 3.7 %); Formosa (3,921 ha, 0.6 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 41.3 °C, humidity dropped to 32 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›
Satellite cross-check
History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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
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 12 March 2024 to 21 March 2024. 889 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 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.