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General Taboada fire, 14 September 2016 General Taboada

Out · last detection 30 Sept 2016, 18:07 UTC

The fire started on 14 September 2016 in General Taboada, Argentina, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,836 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 57th largest in Santiago del Estero since 2016 (of 320 with a page). Number 95 in Argentina in 2016, of 255.

Burnt area
2,836ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
16days
14 Sept 2016 – 29 Sept 2016
Municipalities hit
1
departments
Started on
14 Sept
2016
Heat detections
184
in a single hotspot: 337 MW
Danger at start
42
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
4.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

30 Sept 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Sept29 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

14151718192021222325272830

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
57km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone 11 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 14.8 mm on 4 Oct.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. General Taboada where it started
    2,842 ha reached on 14 Sept
    0.5 %

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 Sept 26.3 °C 17 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
15 Sept 27.5 °C 19 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
16 Sept 31.1 °C 20 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
17 Sept 36.1 °C 18 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
18 Sept 29.2 °C 23 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
19 Sept 24.6 °C 20 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
20 Sept 27.5 °C 19 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
21 Sept 30.8 °C 19 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
22 Sept 35.9 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
23 Sept 25.0 °C 27 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
24 Sept 17.9 °C 32 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
25 Sept 24.5 °C 30 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
26 Sept 30.6 °C 21 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
27 Sept 34.2 °C 20 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
28 Sept 34.8 °C 22 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
29 Sept 26.2 °C 36 % 45 km/h 17.0 mm Low 7
30 Sept after 25.3 °C 47 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
1 Oct after 26.9 °C 41 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
2 Oct after 26.9 °C 48 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
3 Oct after 28.0 °C 45 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
4 Oct after 30.7 °C 38 % 65 km/h 14.8 mm Low 9

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Sept 2016
After · 6 Oct 2016

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Detections table · 184Every 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 General Taboada fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 14 September 2016 and 29 September 2016: 16 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 2,836 hectares (28.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered General Taboada (2,842 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.1 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 57 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 55, class Extreme.
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.